The Geis
by xi.writes
Summary: When medical student Haruno Sakura picked up an antique silver locket at the local flea market, she never expected it to be an ancient magical artefact. Now she's the hapless master to a menacing assassin demon with a thousand-year-old killing curse. ...Is it too late to adopt a cat instead? (A Halloween-inspired AU, told in drabbles.) /COMPLETE/
1. Chapter 1

"Explain to me why we're here again?" Sakura grumbled, glaring at the busty blonde who was bodily dragging her along the crowded streets of Konoha's annual Shinobi Alley festival.

Her friend ignored her glare, neatly sidestepping a sticky-fingered little girl attacking an enormous dango stick with single-minded focus. "Because I haven't seen my best friend in months since she's a soulless workaholic?" she retorted. "Besides, we come here every year. It's basically tradition."

Sakura sighed.

For one day, every spring, the main streets of Konoha would turn into winding bazaar of art, music and culture, as vendors from far and wide poured into the City Hidden in the Leaves to ply their wares. Part flea market, part food festival, the Shinobi Alley was a melting pot of weird, wonderful, and – if Lady Luck was on your side – valuable baubles. Usually, Sakura loved it. This year, she was a little preoccupied.

As if sensing her thoughts, Ino's expertly manicured nails clamped tighter around her forearm, stalling her attempts to slink away. "I'll have you know, I passed on a hot date to go shopping with you today. You should be grateful, Forehead."

"My OSCE's tomorrow, Ino-pig! I should be studying. If I fail—"

"You're not going to fail." Blue eyes widened as Ino caught sight of a nearby stall decked out in a pastiche of pastel and sparkles. "Oh my god, are those cupcake soaps?!" she squealed.

Sakura sighed again. It was going to be a long day.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, Forehead, come look at this!"

Rolling her eyes at her friend's enthusiastic waving, Sakura ambled over in Ino's direction. In typical Ino fashion, the excitable blonde had parked herself by a jewellery stall that was groaning under the weight of a dizzying assortment of antique pieces.

"Calm your tits, Ino, I'm coming!" she hollered back, ignoring a scandalised look from an old lady hawking rows of gaudy hats, decorated with what looked to be stuffed toucans and felted pineapples. 'There's something for everyone, I guess,' Sakura thought bemusedly, though she couldn't help but suppress a shudder of distaste when she walked past.

A few hours had passed since Ino had first dragged her to the festival, and Sakura was surprised to find that the offbeat market stalls had distracted her enough from her looming exam that she was actually starting to enjoy herself. Taking a generous bite from her newly acquired strawberry pocky, Sakura sighed in contentment as she sidled up to her friend. "Well, what's up?"

Ino spun around, long ponytail swishing. "What do you think?" she asked, holding up two pairs of dangling earrings next to her beaming face.

Sakura cocked her head, examining the trinkets with a critical eye. One pair was shaped like budding irises, made with some kind of painted blue ceramic and offset by hammered gold. The other… Sakura squinted. "Are those mini throwing stars?"

"Yep! Cool, huh?" Ino turned back around, twisting left and right as she peered into the mirror that hung conveniently from the corner awning. "Which ones do you think I should get?"

Sakura shrugged. "The blue flowers definitely bring out the colour of your eyes, and you've always looked better in gold than silver," she replied honestly. "But the shuriken ones are really edgy."

"I know, right?! Argh! I just can't decide!"

Sakura sighed, long used to her friend's antics. Ino was a hopelessly indecisive shopper, so Sakura knew they'd be here for a while. Her eyes flickered over to the stall owner. Oddly enough, the stall was manned by a guy who appeared to be not much older than her, his hair gathered in a spiky ponytail and a look of supreme boredom plastered on his face. He sat with his chair tipped back on its hind legs and his hands tucked carelessly behind his head, completely ignoring the two girls.

With her pocky devoured and nothing better to do, Sakura began to rummage half-heartedly through an overflowing box of necklaces. After beginning her medical training, she had quickly lost the habit of wearing any jewellery at all. There just didn't seem to be much point when she spent most days in standard-issue scrubs, and any dates (as Ino frequently liked to remind her) were few and far between.

"Maybe I should get both?" Ino asked.

Sakura hummed non-committally, distracted by a silver locket that she'd unearthed from the bottom of the box. It looked very old, and it had clearly seen better days, but there was something about its shape that captured her attention. "If you want," she replied absently, carefully untangling the chain to pull the necklace free. "Have you asked how much they cost?"

Sakura only listened with half an ear as Ino engaged the stall owner, her voice taking on a throaty, flirtatious lilt as she started the bartering process. Despite the warmth of the day, an icy shiver ran up Sakura's spine when her fingers brushed against the surface of the locket. It was only upon closer examination, as she held it up to the light, that Sakura realised why the shape was so familiar.

Cradled in her palm, beneath the heavily tarnished filigree, was a perfect miniature anatomical rendering of a human heart.


	3. Chapter 3

In the end, it was Ino's persistence, rather than her considerable charms, that got her the discount she wanted.

"No bartering," the guy at the jewellery stand stated flatly. "Prices are as marked."

"I'll buy them both if you sweeten the deal just a little," Ino wheedled. "Come on, why don't you help a poor girl out?" With a flutter of her eyelashes, she braced her hands on the edge of the table, leaning closer to the unimpressed man. The fact that the movement put her cleavage conveniently at his eye-level was neither here nor there.

The guy's eyes didn't so much as flicker downwards. Sakura was impressed. Most guys would've been reduced to a quivering mess by now. "Look lady, it's not my prerogative. Rules are rules. I just work here."

"I'm sure you could make one _tiny_ exception," Ino purred, twirling a silky, golden lock from her ponytail around her fingers. "It could be our little secret."

The guy scowled, looking more and more harangued. Briefly, he glanced over at Sakura, who still had the silver locket dangling from her fingers. "Fine. Ten percent off if you two buy all three items." ' _And leave me in peace.'_ hung in the air, unsaid.

"But I don't even wan—" Sakura started to say, her protests quickly drowned out by her friend's delighted squeal. "Deal!" Ino chirped, throwing a pleading glance at Sakura.

Sakura frowned. From the moment she'd first touched the locket, there was a bizarre, ominous feeling that she couldn't seem to shake off. It was equal parts foreboding and magnetic, and she found herself strangely reluctant to part with the item. Despite her unease, Sakura began digging through her purse, reaching for her wallet.

Ino flashed the seller a winning smile. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

A long-suffering sigh was his only response. In lazy, unhurried movements, he reached out to take their money before handing back the appropriate amount of change. "How troublesome," he muttered under his breath.

Ino's mouth fell open in shock, her flirty demeanour dropping instantly as she threw an offended glare at the man. "Let's go, Sakura," she said waspishly, flouncing off in an indignant huff. "The customer service here is _awful_."


	4. Chapter 4

The sun was setting by the time Sakura finally returned home, streaking the sky and sparsely scattered clouds in vivid shades of blood red and pomegranate pink.

After waving goodbye to Ino with a promise to meet up for coffee soon, Sakura kicked off her sandals and collapsed onto the battered couch squeezed between the bed and the kitchen bench of her tiny studio apartment. Too tired to even think about making dinner, she rubbed her eyes, tipping her head back on the armrest with a groan. As she debated whether to just throw in the towel and order take-out, her hand strayed unconsciously to the pocket of her shorts, where she had shoved the silver necklace purchased from the market. Twisting her fingers around the chain, she pulled it out, dangling it above her face for a closer look.

'The detailing really is exquisite,' she thought admiringly, wishing she had some silver polish on hand to revive it to its former glory. Mesmerised, Sakura gently traced around the edges of the heart, lingering over the ridges that represented the arteries of the aortic arch. When she reached the left subclavian artery, Sakura paused.

It almost felt like a latch.

Sakura sat up, her veins thrumming with curiosity and excitement. An anatomical heart was an unusual design choice for a locket - especially a locket this old - and she hoped that its contents would reveal something about its previous owner. Squinting in the dimming light, she fumbled with the tiny latch, attempting to pry it open.

In her haste, her thumbnail slipped against the surface. The latch immediately scraped across the delicate area where her thumbpad met the edge of the nailbed, drawing blood. Sakura hissed in pain, snatching her hand away, but not before the now-bloodied latch finally released with a click.

The locket sprang open.

The temperature of the room instantly dropped several degrees.

There was a breathless pause, followed by an almighty bang and a blinding flash of light. Feeling like a firework had just exploded in her face, Sakura desperately tried to blink away the stars in her eyes, her ears ringing painfully. As the spots finally cleared from her vision, she froze, heart dropping to her stomach.

A man hovered over her, so close that the ends of his long hair, dark as midnight, brushed against her exposed collarbone. As their gazes locked, Sakura's eyes widened in terror, zeroing on the black pinwheels that spun lazily in his eyes.

His pupil-less, glowing, _demonic-red_ eyes.

Sakura panicked.

With a blood-curdling shriek, she punched the intruder in the face.


	5. Chapter 5

The punch never landed.

With an almost otherworldly grace, the intruder dodged her wild blow with ease, rolling to his feet in one smooth movement. Between one blink and the next, he'd moved from the edge of the sofa to the other side of the room, barely a whisper of sound to betray his passing. There, half-shrouded in shadow, he stood at attention, pinning her with those terrifying crimson eyes.

One beat, before the shell-shocked Sakura tumbled off the sofa with a yelp, almost tripping over the rug in her haste to get to the door. Yanking out her umbrella from its stand, she whipped around, arms shaking violently as she brandished it in front of her. "The fuck just happened," she snarled. "and how the hell did you get into my apartment?!"

For a moment, the man continued to regard her impassively, saying nothing. One brow twitched as he eyed her makeshift weapon.

Sakura blushed. In hindsight, the dirty bread knife on her counter top would've been a more threatening choice than her neon pink umbrella, complete with a cheerful row of rubber duckies printed on its surface. "Well?" she demanded, loudly clearing her throat to hide her mortification and fear.

The man's eyes flicked back to her. Eventually, he spoke. "I believe _you_ summoned _me."_

Sakura suppressed a shiver at the low, silky tones. "What do you mean I _summoned_ you?"

Though the man's face remained fixed in a mask of impassivity, Sakura got the distinct impression that he thought her a fool.

"You opened the locket. You sealed the contract in blood." The barest curl at the corner of his lips signalled his displeasure as he continued. " _You_ are the master of the geis now."


	6. Chapter 6

"So let me get this straight," Sakura said incredulously, after her unwelcome guest had outlined the terms of the geis in a sparse, strangely flat monotone. "You're telling me that because I bled on a random necklace - completely accidentally, I might add - some weird voodoo happened, and bam! I've now got myself a pet assassin."

His eyes narrowed dangerously at the word 'pet'. Sakura gulped, instantly regretting her poor word choice, but said 'pet assassin' simply inclined his head.

"And I can order you to kill whomever I want, and you'd have to obey," she continued.

Another minute nod.

"And I'm basically stuck with you till I keel over in my old age?"

"Or meet an… untimely end."

Sakura stilled, the hairs immediately raising on her arms. Lifting her umbrella in a white knuckled grip, she peered at him, half in suspicion, half in fear. "—Wait, you can't hurt me, right?"

The man sighed. "No," he said. "I cannot."

A pause.

She blinked.

He blinked.

The umbrella fell in a noisy clatter as Sakura collapsed against her door, laughing hysterically. "Oh god, I've officially cracked," she cried, tears streaming down her face. "The stress has finally gotten to me and I'm hallucinating about supernatural phenomena and killer genies."

Abruptly her laughter stopped. 'Dammit,' she thought, eyes narrowing, as she mentally retraced her day. 'Must have been that pocky from the market.'

Yellow contacts. Bisecting black and white body paint. Speaking to himself as though he were two separate entities in an elaborate getup that burst from his shoulders like some bizarre Venus flytrap. "I should have known better than to buy food from that weirdo," she muttered to herself, checking off her symptoms in her head. "Bastard probably laced it with LSD."

Her hallucination still hadn't moved. Raising her head, she met his nonplussed gaze. In the darkness, the long lines under his eyes were even more pronounced. "Hello, figment of my substance-induced psychosis," she said with a cheerful wave.

Sakura barely had time to register the small twitch of his lips, before he was suddenly inches away. He was so close she could sense the heat emanating from his body and see the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. With excruciating slowness, he bent even closer, until she could almost feel his lips brushing against the sensitive shell of her ear.

Sakura squeaked, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I assure you, I'm most definitely _real_ ," he whispered.

And then he poked her gently in forehead.

Sakura's eyes flew open. The man now stood a much more comfortable three paces away, looking at her in cool appraisal. She frantically shook her head. "No," she mouthed desperately. " _No_ _fucking way_."

In a deliberate, languid movement, he raised his right arm until his hand rested lightly on the hilt of the sword strapped to his back. One brow lifted, almost in challenge.

"...Would you stake a life on that?"


	7. Chapter 7

"Are you insane?" Sakura crossed her arms. "You're not killing anyone, okay? There is no way I'm doing jail time just so you can prove your point. Besides, med degrees don't come cheap and I've come way too far to risk my career. I'm pretty sure casually committing homicide is a reasonable ground to be permanently barred from registration."

The man released the hilt of his sword. Sakura stared. Was that a flicker of _surprise_ she detected in his face? "You won't be implicated," he replied cryptically.

Sakura rolled eyes. "Someone's very confident."

An almost imperceptible shrug. "Such is the power of the geis."

"That's beside the point!" she cried, smacking her palm against her forehead in sheer frustration. "I'm a doctor-in-training. I've sworn the Hippocratic oath. This is, like, the antithesis of doing no harm." A bright red handprint was now visible on her forehead, clashing horribly with her hair.

The man sighed. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice."

"What do you mean I don't have a choice? I can just choose not to send you off on a murdering spree!"

He looked away, quiet resignation in the set of his shoulders. "If you don't make a choice," he revealed, tone remote. "the first ten people I see will subsequently die."

Sakura glared. "Let me guess, the geis," she spat out. The back of her head hit the door with a dull thud as she half-slouched against the wooden frame. "Look, could you, I don't know, just close your eyes? Cover them up?"

"It makes no difference."

"…Gouge them out? Get an eye transplant?"

"The geis protects me from injury or death, even by my own hand." His response was as impassive and matter-of-fact as ever, but Sakura got the unsettling feeling that he spoke from experience. A part of her shuddered, suddenly morbidly curious about this strange man's past, but her curiosity was quickly overridden by more pressing matters. "Okay, hypothetically, let's say I ordered you to shank someone," she continued. "Then what happens? Do you just sit around twiddling your thumbs until I give up the ghost?"

He shook his head. "The geis renews itself."

Sakura bolted upright. The muscles in her neck twinged in protest. "Wait. It keeps happening?!"

He nodded. "Every seven days."

"...So you're telling me," she said slowly, fighting the urge to vomit. "I have to sign someone's death warrant, or doom ten randoms, _every seven days_ _for_ _the rest of my life_."

A nod.

"And I have exactly seven days from now to make my first choice before the geis kicks in."

Another nod.

Sakura groaned. "I can't deal with this right now," she said, throwing up her hands in defeat. "I'm studying for my exam. This is all a moot point if I don't pass tomorrow." She waved at him distractedly, making a beeline for her desk. "You can go stand in the corner and kill a cockroach or something."

She froze in midstep, a loophole forming in her mind. "Wait—"

"The target must be human."

Outside, a flock of birds took flight as Sakura gave a strangled cry of despair.


	8. Chapter 8

Studying got off on a shaky start.

It began with Sakura absentmindedly flicking on a lava lamp, a gag 21st birthday gift courtesy of her friend Naruto. Shoved in the corner of her desk, it was an enormous, gaudily retro, phallic-looking thing, containing big blobs of dark red dye suspended in a translucent yellow solution like blood and plasma. Ino had taken one look at it and pronounced it the fugliest lamp she'd ever seen. Sakura, for some reason, was inexplicably fond of it (though much the same could be said of her feelings regarding the gift-giver himself).

Her guest clearly did not share her sentiments. He eyed the lamp for several long moments, as though the innocuous object contained the hidden mysteries of the universe.

Sakura turned to him in amusement. "What, haven't you seen one before? It's an old-school lava lamp. They've been around for, like, over fifty years." She smirked, gaze assessing. "How long were you hibernating in that locket for anyway?"

The man gave a slow blink. "Evidently longer than fifty years," he replied dryly.

Sakura whistled, suitably impressed at the unflappable way he took to being punted through history like a human golf ball. "I'm surprised you even understand half of what comes out of my mouth, then."

Another blink. His voice was deadpan. "…What gives you that impression?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You're hilarious," she said sarcastically, before shooing him off like a wayward dog. "Now quit bothering me, old man, and go entertain yourself for a few hours. You can do that, can't you?"

He nodded. The geis kept him on a short leash, but he could feel the ties lengthen a fraction at her command. Technically she hadn't expressly said he could leave, but he would snatch whatever scraps of temporary freedom he was offered.

"Good," Sakura said, sounding as relieved as he felt. Then she pulled out her notes, shoved on her noise-cancelling headphones, and finally hit the books.

She barely noticed when he opened her window, slid noiselessly onto the frame, and vanished into the night.

Three stories below, a cat bolted away in surprise, yowling.


	9. Chapter 9

Sakura shut the heavy textbook on human physiology with a relieved sigh. Yawning widely, she gave a long stretch, feeling the bones in her neck and spine shift and crack in satisfaction. Several hours had passed since she started her final cramming session, and though the nervous flutters in her stomach hadn't entirely dissipated, she was confident that she was as prepared as she could be for her clinical exam the next morning. As she tipped her chair back, rubbing at her bleary eyes, a slight movement by her open window caught her attention.

Sakura looked up, yelped, and promptly fell out of her chair in a graceless heap.

" _Sweet mother of_ —" she swore. "How long have you been sitting there? Are you _trying_ to give me a heart attack?"

The subject of her ire sat perched on the windowsill, all long lines and deadly, coiled grace. One hand was draped casually over his bent knee, a riceball held in gloved fingers. He merely arched a brow in response, saying nothing. From her undignified position on the floor, Sakura watched, oddly captivated, as he brought the riceball to his lips in lazy, languid movements and slowly took a bite.

Sakura was immediately struck with two things.

One: It should be illegal to make eating a riceball look that sinful.  
Two: She hadn't eaten anything since the pocky from the market eight hours ago.

In the silence, her stomach emitted a very loud, very embarrassing whine of protest.

The corner of the man's lips twitched as heat flooded into Sakura's cheeks. Wordlessly, he fished out another riceball from the pouch dangling at his waist and tossed it in Sakura's direction.

"Thanks," she muttered, trying not to appear too eager as she torn into the package. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted the distinctive swirls that formed a nearby restaurant's logo at the corner of the wrapper. "Hold up," she said, throwing a suspicious glance at the man. "Did you _steal_ these from Choji's?"

He smirked. "I can neither confirm nor deny."

Sakura groaned, glaring at the innocent riceball in her hands as though it had personally betrayed her. "Great. Not only am I contemplating first degree murder, I've also resorted to petty theft. I may as well march myself to the nearest police station now and dob myself in."

For all her bluster, any moral misgivings Sakura had were quickly overridden by gnawing hunger, and she started to shovel the food into her mouth with gusto. From his place on the windowsill, the perpetrator of said 'petty theft' continued to take measured bites of his own riceball, watching her in mild amusement.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he remarked blandly.

Cheeks stuffed with rice, Sakura scowled at the man like an offended chipmunk, fighting the urge to give him the finger.


	10. Chapter 10

Sakura collapsed back against the side of her bed with a stifled burp of satisfaction. As it turned out, her unwittingly adopted assassin (and suspected thief-at-large) had somehow misappropriated not just two, but _ten_ riceballs, and Sakura (having single-handedly demolished seven of the ten) was still recovering from her self-inflicted food coma.

"I unequivocally refuse," she said out-of-the-blue, as she started to collect the remains of the riceball wrappers scattered around her in sluggish movements. The incriminating evidence was furtively scrunched up in her palm and shoved beneath the bed behind her, out of sight.

At her abrupt non-sequitur, half-quizzical vermillion eyes flicked towards her.

Sakura crossed her arms. "No one's going to die," she elaborated with a determined set to her jaw. "because I'm going to break that blasted curse if it's the last thing I do."

The man stared at her for a long moment. It was impossible for Sakura to tell what he was thinking, and eventually she was forced to drop her gaze. 'Damn those stupid, unsettling eyes,' she cursed inwardly, trying not to fidget under his intense scrutiny.

"You are a most… singular master," he finally said.

Sakura's head whipped up, awkwardness instantly morphing into indignation and anger. "Don't call me that!" she snapped. "the idea of owning another human being makes me sick. My _name_ is Sakura. I'd appreciate if you used it."

The man blinked. "Very well then." he replied after a beat. "…Sakura."

There was something about the way her name sounded, when spoken in that silky, elegant tenor, that made her pause. Her pulse skittered. Sakura studiously ignored it. "What're you called?"

"'Assassin', generally."

Sakura rolled her eyes, wondering if he got some perverse pleasure out of being deliberately obtuse. "And does Mr. Assassin have a name?"

He glanced away, turning to look out at the lights of the city. "I did, a long time ago."

Sakura watched as a dark strand of hair, having escaped the confines of his low ponytail, fell forward to partially hide his face. He was likely dangerous, very possibly mentally unstable, not to mention a complete and total stranger, but a part of her couldn't help but feel pity for this man and his unenviable predicament. She waited, hoping he would reveal a tiny sliver of his identity.

"...Itachi," he finally said, almost haltingly, as though he were on the brink of forgetting altogether. "My name was Itachi."

"Well, Itachi," Sakura replied, testing out the soft syllables on her tongue. "Do you want to be free or not?"

The assassin – _Itachi_ – turned back to her.

"Was that a rhetorical question?"


	11. Chapter 11

"It's getting late," Sakura said, after shooting a quick glance at the clock on her dresser. "I'm gonna hit the sack."

Heaving herself up from the floor, she yawned, leisurely making her way towards the adjacent bathroom. Pausing in midstep, she threw a glance over her shoulder at Itachi. "So, uh... do you sleep?"

The man blinked. "I'm cursed, not undead," he replied dryly.

Sakura gaped. "Are you implying that zombies are real?!" At Itachi's vaguely puzzled look, she elaborated. "You know, like a reanimated corpse?" Holding her arms stiffly in front of her, she shuffled around the room, mimicking the creatures that frequently turned up on the bad B-grade horror films Naruto always made them watch on movie nights. "Must… eat… brain…"

Itachi looked at her strangely. Then he gave an almost imperceptible shrug. "Dietary preferences aside, reanimated corpses aren't completely outside the realm of possibility."

"...You've got to be joking."

Itachi unfolded himself from the window ledge, stepping into the room with a grace that would have made a cat hiss in envy. "There are more things in heaven and earth," he said. "than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Sakura blinked. "...Did you just quote _Hamlet_ at me?"

Itachi merely quirked a brow.

Rolling her eyes, Sakura gave up on the subject as she glanced around her tiny room, which somehow felt even smaller with Itachi in it. Eyeing her ratty two-seater couch, she bit her lip. "Do you, um–" she began awkwardly.

"I will sleep outside."

Feeling somewhat relieved, Sakura didn't protest. It was one thing for Naruto or Sai to crash on her couch for the night, but it was another altogether to sleep with all 5 feet 7 inches of leanly-muscled assassin literally within arms reach. Though Itachi had indicated he couldn't hurt her, the self-preserving part of Sakura was unwilling to tempt fate. Not that a few extra feet (or measly walls) would stop him, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"If you're sure," she said. As Itachi turned to leave, however, compassion and guilt won out over wariness. Tugging the woollen blanket off the arm of the couch, she thrust it at him before he could disappear out the window. "Hang on, at least take a blanket. It gets colder at night."

Itachi paused. He eyed the proffered blanket, expressionless. "That won't be necessary," he replied eventually.

Sakura glared. "It might not be for you, but my mom will kill me if she found out I'd been treating a guest so inhospitably." She sighed in exasperation, when he made no move to accept. "...Please?" she tried.

He looked at her for several beats before tentatively taking the fleecy pile from her. "Thank you, Sakura."

"No problem!" she chirped, smiling brightly, before heading towards the bathroom with an extra bounce in her step. Two steps later, she turned back again. "Hey, do you want to use the showe–"

The words died abruptly in her throat.

The window was shut. Itachi was gone.

Sakura closed her mouth, shrugged, and went to brush her teeth.

.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** What do you mean, Shakespeare doesn't exist in the Naruto-verse? Shakespeare exists in every universe._


	12. Chapter 12

The ear-splitting, shrill ringing showed no signs of stopping.

Sakura groaned, burrowing her face deeper into her pillow, trying to block out the noise. Suspended in that tremulous state between dreaming and waking, she'd almost managed to drift off again before she felt a vague presence beside her.

Warm breath tickled her right ear. "Does that infernal racket serve any purpose?"

It was like being doused with a bucket of ice water.

Sakura screeched, jerking up so quickly that she would have almost knocked heads with the owner of the low, silky voice. Only his lightning-fast reflexes saved their skulls from collision.

"Ugh, you're still here," she groused, squinting at the dark figure of Itachi through bleary eyes. The woollen blanket she had forcibly handed him the night before was folded neatly in his arms. "So much for it all being a horrible fever dream."

Itachi said nothing.

The alarm clock kept ringing.

Crimson eyes flicked towards the violently vibrating object. It had been ringing for so long that it now threatened to completely vibrate off the side of her dresser.

"Are you going to silence that?" he asked. Though his tone was light, Sakura could detect the unspoken threat in his voice. ' _Do it, or I will. Permanently.'_

Sakura pounced on the alarm clock, slamming the 'off' button. She shot Itachi a dirty look, hugging the clock protectively in her arms. "Don't you _dare_ harm my poor, defenseless alarm clock."

Itachi regarded her pointedly. "You said you had an examination this morning."

Sakura glanced down at the clock face. '7.43' it read. Her eyes widened in horror. "Crap!" Throwing her heavy coverlet aside, she leaped out of bed, grabbing a random assortment of clothes from a wrinkled pile on her chair (the embarrassing evidence of laundry she never managed to fold and put away) before racing to the bathroom. "I have to be at the hospital in half an hour!"

Ten minutes later, the bathroom door opened again, revealing a slightly more presentable Sakura, who was hopping on one foot in a rather undignified fashion as she attempted to tug on her socks. Notes, papers and a slightly dented pencil case was hurriedly shoved into her backpack while she rattled off a checklist of items under her breath.

Amongst the flurry of activity, like the deceptive, still eye of the hurricane, Itachi stood and surveyed the scene with an impassive eye.

Yanking on a pair of scuffed sneakers, with twenty minutes to spare, Sakura stuffed her wallet and keys into her coat pocket before sprinting out the door. "There's food in the fridge if you get hungry," she said absently, and then paused, after trying (and failing) to remember how long various items had been in there for. "...On second thought, some of it might not be edible, so uh... proceed with caution."

Itachi inclined his head.

"I should be back by noon," she called over her shoulder. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of getting Itachi to make a start on researching about the geis, before thinking better of it. He'd sooner destroy her laptop than find anything useful. "Don't break anything – or hurt any inanimate objects – while I'm gone!"

The door slammed shut.

Alone in the now almost eerily silent room, Itachi sighed, shaking his head.


	13. Chapter 13

Four hours later, a mentally exhausted Sakura turned the lock on her front door, collapsing against the surface as soon as it'd closed behind her. She heaved a long sigh of relief. "...Thank God that's over."

Itachi glanced up at her dramatic entrance. He was perched on her couch, one of her pharmacology textbooks open on his lap.

"Interesting choice of light reading," she teased, trying to hide her surprise.

Itachi tilted his head thoughtfully. "There have been significant advances in medicine over the last century. The pace of the innovation occurring in your generation is… fascinating."

Sakura laughed, the nerdy part of her swooning a little on the inside. Intellectual curiosity was such a turn-on. "Careful, Itachi, your age is showing," she said. Her forehead crinkled at her next thought. "Wait... just how old are you anyway?"

Itachi quietly shut the textbook, returning it to its rightful place on her bookshelf. "I'm twenty-seven," he replied drolly.

She raised her brows. "And just how _long_ have you been twenty-seven?"

Itachi only smirked in response.

Sakura made a face. "Fine, fine, keep your stupid secrets," she said in exasperation, before reluctantly peeling herself away from the door. Grabbing two bottles of soy milk from the fridge, she set them on the desk that served as both her dining table and work station. "Right, onto business," she continued, voice brisk. "If we're going to do this, we're doing it properly."

Itachi crossed his arms loosely over his chest. "And how do you propose we start?"

The smile Sakura flashed at him showed off her canines. "The same way all respectable problem-solving should start," she replied. "...with _research_." Two red bean buns, purchased from the hospital canteen on her way home, were fished out her bag to join the bottles of soy milk on her desk. Waving Itachi over, she flipped open the cover of her laptop.

The screen flickered to life.

"Pull up a chair, my friend, and allow me to introduce you to the greatest innovation of the century. We'll begin our literature review on the internet."


	14. Chapter 14

"How is it possible that 'cats on roombas' yields over four hundred relevant search results, but there is literally nothing useful on breaking curses, or killing geises?!" Sakura slammed her empty soy milk bottle on the table in frustration.

Itachi was a still shadow at her side. It was only the occasional accidental brush of her shoulder against his arm that reminded Sakura he was actually corporeal. He had watched her conduct her preliminary searches with undisguised interest, asking the odd question about various elements of computer technology that she could only half-answer in the most general terms. (At some point, after a particularly poor attempt at an answer, she had snapped defensively, "Hey, I'm a doctor, not an IT specialist. I don't exactly know how it works, I just know how to use it.")

"This 'internet' of yours does seem to be disturbingly fixated on felines," Itachi commented blandly.

"That's because dog owners actually go outside," Sakura quipped as she skimmed over what felt like the hundredth webpage, all equally unhelpful. Suddenly, she sat up in her seat, noticeably brightening. "Hey, look, I found something about a guy who broke a geis by appearing in twilight, wrapped in a fishing net, with one foot on a cauldron and the other on a goat."

She turned to Itachi in excitement. "Do you want to—"

"No."

"But what if—"

"No."

Sakura sighed, deflating a little. "Oh, fine, I'll add that to the bottom of our list as a last resort."

Powering off the laptop, Sakura stood up, arms akimbo. "There's no helping it, I guess. We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way." After giving the puzzled Itachi an assessing once-over, she rummaged through her drawers and pulled out a pair of generic black sunglasses. "Here, put these on."

Itachi eyed the glasses with distaste, but reluctantly did as he was told. With his black hair, black clothes, and new black shades, he would've fit right in an emo-goth concert. "...They restrict my vision."

"Yeah, well, at least you won't make babies cry on the streets now." Sakura retorted, pulling on her jacket. "Could you leave the sword behind, too, please? I doubt you're going to get much use out of it, unless you intend on hacking up books."

Itachi raised a brow. "...And if I did?"

Sakura blinked. She could've sworn he was teasing – or bating – her. "Itachi, I'm pretty sure there's a special level of hell for people who do that."

.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The unique geis-breaking method Sakura found on the internet is based on a real Celtic myth. Yes, down to the fishnet, cauldron and goat. You can't make this stuff up._


	15. Chapter 15

"Um, excuse me," Sakura said awkwardly, as she approached the ground floor helpdesk of the Konoha Public Library.

The librarian manning the desk was hunched over a small book in his lap, giggling to himself. At Sakura's tentative interruption, he looked up lazily. Most of his face was covered by a medical-grade face mask, his left eye obscured by a shock of white hair.

"How can I help you?" he drawled. The lone, visible eye crinkled in a friendly half-moon.

Sakura blinked, caught momentarily off-guard. Other than the faint crow's feet at the corners of his eye, the librarian's face (or what little Sakura could see of it, at least) was smooth and unmarred. He was definitely not the old man she'd thought he was from far away.

"We're, uh, looking for books on curses?"

The man flicked a glance between the pink-haired girl, and the shadowy man lurking behind her. He offered them another eye crinkle. "...A little inappropriate, don't you think?"

Sakura glared, crossing her arms. "People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones."

"...Hm?" The expression in his dark, hooded gaze was mildly quizzical at best.

Sakura shot a pointed look at the book on his lap. Its lurid orange cover instantly gave away the identity of its author, whom Sakura had the dubious pleasure of knowing as 'Naruto's lecherous Uncle Jiraiya'. "You're reading porn," she said flatly. "On the job. How are you not fired already?"

The man flapped a careless hand in her direction. "Now, now," he replied. "Icha Icha Paradise is a literary classic."

Sakura fixed him with an unimpressed stare. "...Icha Icha is written by a pervert, for perverts."

The man merely shook his head in response. "Youngsters these days," he sighed mournfully. "No respect for good literature."

When Sakura tapped her foot impatiently, he ripped out a page from a notepad on the desk and scrawled down some titles, followed by the corresponding Dewey decimal numbers. "You can find 'A User's Guide to the Best Swear in Every Language' on the first floor in the Languages section, and 'A Grand Taxonomy of Shakespearean Insults' on the—"

Sakura smacked her hand against her forehead.

"...Not that kind of curse."


	16. Chapter 16

"What have you found?"

Sakura almost jumped out of her skin. Caught off-guard, the book she was holding went flying. Swallowing back a string of very colourful expletives before they could get her kicked out of the library, she spun around angrily.

"Can you stop _doing_ _that_?!" she gritted out, glaring daggers at the man who had materialised like a ghost behind her. In one swift movement, he neatly caught the airborne text before it could hit the ground.

Her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously. "...You did that on purpose."

Itachi smirked, wordlessly handing back the book he had rescued.

"Bloody ninja," Sakura muttered under her breath as she snatched the book back. They were in the mythology and folklore section, wedged in the furthermost corner of the library's third floor, the last rays of the afternoon sun reflecting off the dusty shelves and making them sparkle. Spotting the two slim volumes Itachi had tucked under his arm, she raised her brows in challenge. "What have _you_ found?"

"Limited information," he replied. "A few occult and pagan texts suggest destroying the source, or killing the caster."

"Who I assume is long dead." Sakura pursed her lips pensively. "But nuking the locket is definitely worth investigating further."

"Did you find anything useful?"

Sakura rifled through the book, returning back to the page she'd been poring over before Itachi had rudely interrupted her. "Not really. According to folklore, most curses have some kind of escape clause or loophole. In one tale, the heroine took an oath of silence for six years and made shirts out of thorns in order to free her six brothers who'd been bespelled as swans. In another, a villain who was ostensibly so formidable that 'no man's hand could slay him' ended up getting his head lopped off by a woman."

Itachi had moved closer to read over her shoulder while she was speaking. As Sakura tilted her head to look back at him, she was startled to find just how close he was. He smelled like pine trees and wood-smoke.

"...You wouldn't happen to know if there's a convenient loophole built into your killing curse, would you?" she asked, fighting the ridiculous urge to bury her nose in his jacket lapel to inhale the intriguing scent.

Itachi paused before giving a small shake of his head. Sakura quickly averted her gaze before he could catch her gawking at his cheekbones. "Well, the other method is if I find some way of setting you free. There's a lot in the mythology about purity of intent and selflessness and crap, but not really anything on the actual methodology or execution. Except, of course, the classic fairy tale trope of–" Abruptly, she slammed her mouth shut.

Itachi arched a brow. "Of...?"

' _Don't look at his lips, don't look at his lips.'_ Sakura chanted silently to herself, attempting to beat back the heat creeping steadily up her neck.

"...Never mind." she muttered.


	17. Chapter 17

Just as Sakura and Itachi finished the library check-out process, the capricious spring weather revealed its true colours and it started pouring outside. For a minute the pair stood in the awning of the library's main entrance, staring morosely out into the grey, rain-slicked streets that had been bright and sunlit only minutes before.

"We could wait to see if it lets up," Sakura began dubiously, berating herself for forgetting her umbrella. "Or we could take the bus."

"I can make my way back to your living quarters on foot."

If Sakura hadn't been watching closely, she would've missed the slight tensing in Itachi's shoulders at the word 'bus'. She got the impression that he would have chosen to slog through a blizzard than risk being crammed up like sardines next to strangers on public transportation.

Sakura sighed. What was fifteen minutes of walking through a torrential downpour anyway? "I'll come with you," she said in resigned tones. "It's only water, after all."

"...You needn't change your plans on my account."

Sakura flapped a dismissive hand at him. "It's fine. May as well suffer through the shitty weather together and share in the misery."

Itachi's head turned to look at her more fully. Having grown used to his silent, assessing gaze, Sakura merely rolled her eyes at him in response. "When you're done giving me weird looks, can we go?"

Flippant sassiness turned to flabbergasted shock when Itachi smoothly shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her.

Sakura's mouth dropped open.

"For cover," he said simply, by way of explanation.

When Sakura continued to goggle at him as if he'd grown an extra head, he continued, as stoic and dispassionate as ever. "I am impervious to sickness. You are not."

Sakura's eyes narrowed, one hand settling on her hip in indignation. "Did you just insult my immune system? I'm not _weak_ , I'll have you know."

Itachi tilted his head. He seemed almost perplexed at her reaction. "...You are human."

"Well, _this_ human can handle a little rain," she returned sarcastically. "Plus, you can't actually catch a cold from the cold or wet. The only thing that can cause a cold or flu is a viral or a bacterial infection. All getting cold or wet does is allow symptoms to develop if you happen to already be carrying the infection."

Itachi's brow lifted. "I thought you weren't in the habit of taking unnecessary gambles. Am I wrong?"

Realising she'd been backed into a corner, Sakura gritted her teeth. "Fine," she snapped, snatching the proffered clothing from his grasp. "I'll take the damn jacket."

"Infuriating man," she grumbled under her breath, as she held Itachi's jacket over her head. It was still warm from his body heat, and despite her rather vocal protests, Sakura couldn't help but give a surreptitious sniff as his pine and wood-smoke scent settled over her.

'Who said chivalry was dead?' she thought bemusedly, sprinting out into the rain.

(It just came in the form of an indentured killer demon with a penchant for driving her crazy.)


	18. Chapter 18

Sakura all but herded Itachi into the bathroom once they'd reached her apartment. "I don't care if you technically can't get sick. We're both soaked to the bone, and even a rainbow-crapping unicorn would be feeling cold and miserable by now." she said firmly. "I have a fully functioning bathroom, with running hot water, and I insist you use it." With her hands planted on her hips, she stared him down, daring Itachi to argue.

Itachi blinked, but inclined his head graciously. "That is... considerate of you."

Somewhat surprised, but relieved that he hadn't put up a fight, a bright smile broke over Sakura's face. "Don't mention it," she replied, pushing her sopping wet bangs out of her face in a quick, mindless movement. "Hang on a sec, lemme get you a fresh towel and see if I can scrounge up some dry clothes."

Without waiting for his response, she raced back into the main room, digging through her dresser for something Itachi could wear. Items were pulled out and promptly discarded, and Sakura bit her lip, quickly realising that even her baggiest sweats wouldn't fit the taller Itachi. Before she could open her mouth to ask if he'd be okay with looking a bit ridiculous in slightly cropped things, her fingers brushed against a soft bundle shoved at the very back of her drawer. Sakura frowned, pulling out a wrinkled black tee and some faded rust-orange pajama bottoms, worn soft with use and care.

Her eyes widened in recollection. They were the pajamas she'd borrowed from Naruto that one time she'd drunkenly crashed in his dorm after a wild O-week party that got way out of control. In the morning, a severely hungover Sakura had ended up walking home in them, with a promise to return the set, freshly washed, to their rightful owner. Evidently, the 'returning' part never ended up happening.

Gathering the unwittingly purloined pajama set and plucking out a towel from her clean laundry pile, Sakura walked back to the bathroom, where Itachi hadn't moved from his spot in the middle of the cramped space.

"Here," she said, thrusting the bundle at him. Very deliberately, Sakura fixed her eyes on the small puddle collecting on the dated, yellowing tiles at his feet. She tried not to think about the devastating way his thin, wet undershirt was plastered over his lean frame, throwing the defined muscles of his chest into sharp relief. "These should probably fit."

Elegant, slightly calloused hands, with their inexplicable, purplish-black tinted fingernails, reached out to take the bundle. "Thank you, Sakura."

Sakura made the mistake of looking up at Itachi's quiet thanks. In the harsh, fluorescent light of the bathroom, the pinwheels spinning lazily in his blood-red eyes had an almost hypnotic effect.

' _They're strangely beautiful from up close. Terrifying, but beautiful.'_ Disturbed at the direction her thoughts were taking her, Sakura gulped, instantly averting her eyes. Unfortunately, her darting gaze was caught instead by an innocuous water droplet that had dripped from an inky strand of hair onto his cheek. Helpless and mesmerised, unable to look away, she followed its slow path down the aristocratic lines of his neck, watching as it rolled over the sharp contours of his collarbone, and lower still, where it disappeared into the–

"–is that all, or do you intend on remaining in the room?" Itachi's voice was as dry as the Suna desert.

Sakura squeaked, snapping out of her trance. "Yes! I mean, no! I mean, yes, that's all!" Beet-red, she spun around so swiftly she almost slipped on the wet tiles. "I'mleavingrightnow!"

As she fled out of the bathroom, limbs flailing, Sakura could have sworn she heard him chuckle.


	19. Chapter 19

As soon as the shower started running in the bathroom, Sakura whipped off her wet things and roughly towel dried herself down before changing into her cozy college sweats. After that mortifying incident in the bathroom, it would be just her luck for Itachi to catch her in a floundering state of undress. Resisting the urge to bang her head repeatedly against the wall in humiliation, she shuffled over to the kitchenette and began gathering up the ingredients for a simple noodle soup. Very soon, a handful of seaweed and scallions was joining the noodles bubbling merrily away in a miso-based broth.

The bathroom door opened just as she was ladling the meal into two mismatched bowls. Any lingering embarrassment instantly disappeared when Itachi emerged from the steamy room. The loose, faded pajamas, complete with an enormous cartoon fox face wedged between the words 'for' and 'sake' on the front, were utterly incongruous with the wearer. No longer in head-to-toe black, his sword and arm guards carefully put away, her adopted assassin was stripped of his armour in the most absurdly adorable manner. Sakura bit back a smile. Briefly, she considered teasing him about his rumpled appearance, before thinking better of it.

"Here," she said instead, though she was unable to suppress the amusement in her voice as she handed over a bowl. "I hope you like miso udon."

For a while, the only sounds heard in the room was the occasional soft slurping from Sakura (Itachi ate as he did all things – soundlessly) as the pair shared the meal in a companionable silence.

It was Sakura who spoke first. "Well," she began, after the last of her soup had been polished off. "Based on what we've found so far, the most promising lead we have is to find some way to destroy the locket." Setting down her chopsticks, she frowned in thought. "I've got an old high school friend who's in the business of making historical weaponry, mostly for classical sword-fighting aficionados and movies and stuff. If anyone has the means of destroying the locket, it'll be her. We can drop by her forge tomorrow."

Taking Itachi's slow blink for acquiesce, Sakura hesitated for a beat, before cautiously continuing, voice gentle. "I don't want to pry, and you clearly don't want to talk about it, so I'm not going to ask who cursed you, or how it happened. But if there's anything about your past that could help us figure out how to break the geis, you'll tell me, right? I promise not to break confidence, or use the information against you – scout's honour."

Itachi stilled. "…I will bear that in mind," he replied neutrally.

Sakura sighed. While that wasn't a 'no', it wasn't exactly a 'yes' either. At least she tried. "Okay, then." And then, swallowing her misgivings, she said, "The couch is yours, if you want it. It's not particularly comfortable, but it's better than sleeping outside in the rain."

(Because trust was a two-way street, and someone had to take the first step.)


	20. Chapter 20

"SAAAAAAKURA! OPEN THE DOOR! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!"

Jerking awake from the incessant pounding at her door and a familiar voice yelling her name, Sakura sat up in bed, swearing under her breath. Itachi, who had reluctantly agreed to take the couch the night before, was already on his feet, crouched warily in a defensive stance.

"Stand down, stand down. It's fine," Sakura mouthed, only semi-jokingly, as she flapped a mollifying hand in his direction. Climbing out of bed, she trudged over to her front door, gingerly cracking it open with a scowl.

"Naruto. What the hell."

The loud-mouthed blond's eyes, bluer than the morning sky, lit up at her appearance. "Sakura! Let's go have ramen!"

Sakura's flat voice flattened even further. "...It's eight. In the morning."

"It's never too early for ramen!" Naruto exclaimed, bouncing eagerly on the balls of his feet. " _Especially_ when we're celebrating end of midterms and the beginning of the mid-semester break!"

Sakura cast a furtive glance back into her room. As close as she and Naruto were, she really didn't feel up to explaining the whole demon assassin situation to him. Knowing Naruto, he'd probably flip out – especially if he found Itachi in his pajamas. "Now's not the best time."

"Why not? Do you have someone around?" Attempting to peer around the door, Naruto waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Is it a _guyyyy_?!"

"No!" she hastily denied, before blurting out the first excuse that popped into her head. "It's a– a– cat! I'm temporarily fostering a cat."

"Aw, cute! Lemme see!"

It was only Sakura's surprising strength and death grip on the door that prevented Naruto's attempts to barge into her apartment. "Naruto, you're violently allergic to cats," she was quick to remind him. Feeling a twinge of guilt at her subterfuge and for ditching her friend, her voice softened in apology. "Look, I'll call you as soon as I'm free, alright? I'm just looking after him until his paw heals."

After waving a visibly disappointed Naruto off, Sakura shut the door with a sigh. Turning around, she met Itachi's raised brow and droll side-eye with a glare. "Don't give me that judgy look. You owe those pajamas to Naruto."

"You must be… close."

Sakura's eyes narrowed. It was impossible to tell from Itachi's bland tone if he was insinuating anything or simply making an observation. "Naturally," she shot back anyway, feeling a bizarrely pressing urge to clear up any misunderstandings with Itachi regarding her relationship status. "We've been good friends since elementary."

Itachi turned away, a ghost of a smirk on his face. "...My condolences, then."


	21. Chapter 21

The small forge on top of the hill was already humming with activity when Sakura and Itachi rounded the crest. A large red and white banner was draped from the corrugated iron roof, cheerfully proclaiming 'Welcome to 10 Squared - if you can dream it, I can make it!'.

The door to the smithy was half-open. Sakura hesitantly pushed it open, Itachi only two steps behind her. "Tenten?" she called out, the sound immediately swallowed by the steady whine and clatter of heavy machinery.

A wiry brunette, her hair twisted up in two high buns, stood by the crackling open fire. Despite her small frame, she handled the large sword in the charcoal forge with practiced ease. Sakura and Itachi watched as it was pulled out of the fire and dunked in a nearby quenching tank, the glowing blade engulfed by an enormous fireball as the oil in the tank burst into flames from the sudden heat.

Sakura instinctively took a step back. Completely unfazed, Tenten pulled the quenched blade out by the hilt in a quick, economical movement. Finally catching sight of her visitors, a wide smile broke over the brunette's open, honest face. "Sakura!" she greeted cheerfully, before returning her attention back to the sword to examine it for distortion. "This is unexpected."

"Sorry to drop in on you like this, Tenten. I tried calling this morning but you must've already been hard at work," Sakura replied, returning Tenten's smile with a sheepish one of her own. "If you're busy now we can come back another time?"

"Not at all! It's good to see you." After carefully setting the sword down to cool, Tenten lifted her safety glasses, her eyes flickering over in Itachi's direction in an unspoken question.

Sakura followed her glance to the dour, silent man, who was back in his head-to-toe black, his peculiar eyes obscured by sunglasses once more. "Oh, this is Itachi," she introduced, as he inclined his head in silent greeting. "He's, uh... recovering from Lasik surgery."

"Nice to meet you, Itachi." Taking his strange appearance in stride, Tenten simply flashed him one of her easy, pleasant smiles, before turning back to Sakura. "I'm assuming this isn't a social call?"

"I was wondering, given your expertise in metal work, if you could help me with something."

"Happy to help if I can! Did you need something made?"

"...The opposite, actually." Reaching in her pocket, Sakura pulled out the locket. "Is there any way you could destroy this necklace?"

Tenten's eyebrows lifted.

Sakura sighed. "...It's a long story."

Dark eyes inquisitive, Tenten opened her mouth to respond. Before she could, however, the door to the forge burst open with a bang, and a veritable hurricane of green energy hurtled in their direction. "TENTEN, MY FRIEND! I have come as you instructed for the new leg weights!"

The events of the next few seconds happened very quickly. Acting on instinct, Itachi reached for the first weapon he could find, instantly halting the flurried movement of the interloper. Sneakered feet skidded to a stop, revealing the younger of the 'Konoha's Beautiful Green Beasts' in all his round-eyed, bowl-cut and green jumpsuited glory, Tenten's unfinished sword pointed directly between his bushy brows.

Everyone blinked.

"Itachi, for the love of all things holy, _put the damn sword down_." Sakura hissed under her breath, before flashing Lee an apologetic smile. "Hi, Lee."

"Sakura!" The tragically unfashionable, broad-shouldered young man beamed at her, his white teeth sparkling as brightly as a toothpaste ad. "I am delighted to see Konoha's most beautiful flower in the full blooming of YOUTH!"

Sakura cringed. "Errrr… thanks. I think." she replied awkwardly. And then, to divert attention— "Lee, this is Itachi."

Unperturbed by the sword pointed in his face, Lee straightened, thrusting an enthusiastic thumbs-up in Itachi's direction. "Itachi! I am the handsome devil of the City Hidden in the Leaves! My name is Rock Lee. I see you are a worthy opponent and love rival for Sakura's affections!"

Sakura sputtered.

"He's not— we're not—" Red-faced, she gestured wildly, the words failing her.

Itachi still hadn't put the sword down.

From behind them, Tenten's cough sounded suspiciously like a snicker.


	22. Chapter 22

"Well, this is weird."

Tenten turned off the propane torch with a frown. Lee and Sakura peered curiously over her shoulder. The locket, which had been blasted by a continuous blue flame for a good five minutes, sat in a small ceramic crucible, entirely unaffected. The metal surface hadn't so much as changed colour.

"Silver melts at just under 1000 degrees Celsius, and this flame burns close to twice that! By all accounts, this should be a melted puddle by now." Hand on her hip, Tenten gave the necklace a hard look. "...Let me try the induction furnace."

Picking up the locket with a small pair of tongs, she expertly transferred it into what looked like a large grey safe. With a twist of a dial and a press of a button, the machine hummed to life. "If two minutes at 3000 degrees doesn't turn it into a pile of silver goo, I don't know what will."

There was a breathless silence in the room as the seconds ticked down. Finally, the machine beeped.

Tenten opened the furnace door.

The locket glinted innocently back at them.

"That's some jewellery you've got there, Sakura," she said wryly, as the girl in question visibly wilted. "If I didn't know any better, I would've sworn it was made of tungsten."

"Is there no other way of destroying it?"

A mischievous look appeared in the metalsmith's eyes. "Well, we could always take a hammer to it."

"Allow me!" An enthusiastic Lee, who had remained uncharacteristically silent during Tenten's initial experiments, excitedly cut in. "Under Master Gai's vigorous instruction, my strength is well-suited for this feat!" Hoisting the tongs like a victory flag, he picked up the necklace and set it down on a nearby anvil. "Sakura, please reconsider your position on going out with me!" he shouted, raising a hammer high above his head. "I will destroy this necklace with the POWER OF YOUTH!"

Several feet away, a silent and carefully expressionless Itachi made a move in Lee's direction, and then stopped.

"Wait, Lee, I have a hydraulic press—" Tenten tried to say, but it was too late.

With a loud battle cry, the hammer came down. There was a blinding flash of light as iron collided with silver— and then Lee went flying. Tumbling head-over-heels, he landed in a heap by the wall, as though he was nothing more than a ragdoll tossed backwards by some malevolent, invisible hand.

"Lee!" Tenten cried, rushing towards the fallen man. Doctor-mode kicking in, Sakura immediately followed, turning on the flashlight in her phone to check Lee's eyes for signs of concussion. Luckily, though dazed and rather stunned by the unusual turn of events, he was otherwise uninjured, and quickly began spouting effusive assurances with his usual broad grin.

As Tenten helped Lee into a sitting position, Sakura marched over to Itachi. "You knew this would happen, didn't you?" she accused, whispering to avoid being overheard.

"I had my suspicions," Itachi replied neutrally.

"Why didn't you stop him?!"

"...I would not have gotten there fast enough."

Sakura glared at his bald-faced lie. " _Bullshit_."


	23. Chapter 23

Convincing the exuberant Lee to remain under observation for another twenty minutes was no mean feat. The man kept trying to rush back to the gym with his new leg weights, loudly proclaiming that he'd bounced back from much bigger tumbles during training (which Sakura didn't doubt in the least), and that such an inconsequential setback was no match against his ample 'power of youth' (which Sakura didn't even try to understand).

"Sit down," she ordered, pressing a firm hand on Lee's shoulder and forcibly halting his restless movements.

"But—"

"No buts."

"Listen to Sakura, Lee," Tenten chimed in, with an air of saint-like patience that only came after years of dealing with the crazy Lee and his even crazier mentor Gai. Then, turning to Sakura, she said, more quietly— "Hey, could I have a quick word?"

"Sure." Tired green eyes scanned for the aloof figure of Itachi, narrowing dangerously when they landed on their target. "Itachi, can you come monitor Lee for a moment, please?" Though phrased as a question, it was clear from her steely undertones that Sakura wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

Itachi sighed. With palpable reluctance, he moved closer, looming over the seated Lee with his arms crossed.

"If he suddenly loses consciousness, starts slurring his words, or reports any feelings of dizziness, confusion, or pain, let me know immediately," Sakura commanded. She shot him a pointed look. "It's the least you could do."

Not waiting for a response, she hurried to where Tenten stood. The metalsmith was busy prodding at the locket in a manner that was equal parts wary and inquisitive, and didn't look up when Sakura drew near. "So," she began, voice matter-of-fact. "You never ended up telling me how you came about this… unique object, and why you're so keen on destroying it."

Sakura shook her head, keeping half an eye on Lee and Itachi, the latter managing to deflect and shut down any attempts at conversation with surprising ease. "Believe me, you don't want to know. Something supernatural is definitely at work though."

"You don't say," Tenten replied wryly. Chewing absentmindedly on her lip, she shot her friend a contemplative look. "I know a guy in Suna who owns an occult store. Some call him the Sandman. Maybe he could help you find a way to get rid of it."

Sakura's brows shot up. "...You know a guy who owns an occult store?"

Tenten laughed at her incredulous tone. "It's a bit unusual, I know. Long story short, his older brother is a puppet-maker, and we worked together on a film. Kankuro ended up introducing us, and Gaara and I have been friends ever since."

"Hold up—" Sakura paused, a sly smile breaking over her face. "...You mean that's _the_ Gaara? The one that set Neji off on a jealous rampage?"

"The one," Tenten admitted with a blush. She'd had a low-key crush on her longtime friend and resident stick-in-the-mud, Hyuuga Neji, for years. Both parties had chosen to deliberately ignore the issue and do nothing about it, much to Sakura's amusement and exasperation. It had taken the unabashed pursuit of the girl by the mysterious Gaara, and the very real danger of losing Tenten, for Neji to finally confront his true feelings for the down-to-earth brunette.

Sakura clapped her hands delightedly. "Well, I _have_ to meet him now. Itachi and I will be on the first train to Suna tomorrow."


	24. Chapter 24

After thanking Tenten for her help while evading Lee's bumbling advances, Sakura scooped up the necklace and trudged back home, trying not to feel too disheartened. "Well then," she said to Itachi, in as chirpy a tone as she could manage, once they were back in her small apartment. "Wanna help me cook tomato rice for lunch?"

...In hindsight, it wasn't one of Sakura's smartest ideas.

With rice and tomatoes tossed into the rice cooker, Sakura was busy chopping up the scallion garnish when the pressure valve on the cooker began to release rapid bursts of steam. From the corner of her eye, she saw Itachi raise a hand towards the thimble-shaped object.

Her head whipped up in alarm, as horrifying images of an exploded kitchen with rice-splattered walls flashed through her mind's eye. "Don't touch that!"

In her distracted state, the knife in her hand slipped. The sharp blade sliced against her knuckle, taking a sliver of skin with it. Sakura hissed in pain, blood immediately beginning to well from the cut. Swearing under her breath, she raced to the bathroom and yanked out her first-aid kit from the medicine cabinet, fumbling in the kit for gauze and clean bandages with her uninjured hand.

Clumsy, one-handed attempts at applying the bandage were promptly halted when a pair of warm, sword-roughened hands covered hers. Frozen in shock, Sakura could only gawk owlishly as Itachi tightly wound the bandage over her finger. His movements were steady, efficient... and startlingly gentle.

"I was merely moving to centre the pot on the element," he murmured in belated explanation, and to Sakura's chagrin. Vermillion eyes remained fixed on the bandaged wound even after the task was complete. "It was not my intention to cause you alarm or injury."

He hadn't dropped her hand. Seconds ticked by, and Sakura became keenly aware of the fact that he could probably detect her pulse, racing madly at her wrist. Chalking her strange lightheadedness to the shock and blood loss, she snatched her fingers free. "For someone who's impossible to injure, you're a surprisingly practiced hand at this," she quipped, to diffuse the uncomfortable tension in the room.

Itachi's lips twitched. "Muscle memory is a peculiar thing."

"Useful skill to still have when this is all over," she teased. "You might not be so indestructible anymore."

He eyed her with an almost marvelling expression, as though he was coming to terms with something he'd half-dismissed. "...You truly believe you can free me of this geis."

Sakura gaped, all previous awkwardness forgotten, as she fought the urge to bash her head against the wall in frustration. "Nah, I'm just doing all this for shits and giggles," she snapped sarcastically. "Even if our efforts are completely futile, we have to try! Which isn't easy, might I add, given _your_ trust issues and the complete lack of any context! At least give me _something_ to work with, jeez!"

Any latent anger bubbling inside her instantly dissipated at his next words.

"I suppose," he said faintly. "I should explain the genesis of the geis."


	25. Chapter 25

"What do you know about Shimura Danzo?"

Sakura frowned. "...You mean Danzo the Conqueror? The shogun warlord who united the nomadic clans of Leaf and most of the surrounding territories?" Absently, she passed Itachi a bowl of steaming tomato rice before settling at the table to eat. "History books have dubbed him one of the founding fathers of the Land of Fire."

A corner of Itachi's mouth twisted up in a cynical half-smile. "History does have the unfortunate tendency of being written by the victors," he said. He regarded her over his bowl for a long moment. "Do you know anything of the Uchiha clan?"

Chewing on her lip, Sakura attempted to dredge up the long-forgotten content from her high school history classes. "Didn't they get completely wiped out after attempting to stage a coup d'etat during Danzo's rise to power?"

Itachi gave a minute shake of his head. "Not completely, though history books might claim otherwise," he said quietly. He glanced away, the lines around his eyes deepening with a weariness that was completely at odds with his youthful appearance. "I am— _was_ Itachi, son of Fugaku, heir to the Uchiha clan, and the sole survivor of the Uchiha Massacre."

A spoonful of rice froze halfway to Sakura's mouth. "But that was almost a thousand years ago!" she sputtered disbelievingly. "Are you telling me you've been under a geis for a _millennium_?!"

A curt nod. Itachi's jaw clenched, and Sakura watched the muscle under his cheek dance and shift. "Danzo was the one who cursed me. The Uchiha Massacre was his first order as master of the geis." For a split second, a savage, tormented look flashed across his eyes, contrasting sharply with the flat, lifeless tenor of his voice. "I am the last of the Uchiha because _I_ slaughtered my kin."

Grains of rice skittered over the table like tiny glass shards as the spoon fell from Sakura's nerveless fingers.


	26. Chapter 26

"How— how did it happen?" Sakura finally stammered, torn between a powerful urge to recoil from the man and the absurd desire to envelop him a comforting hug.

"As a shinobi, I swore an oath of allegiance to my village, and the shogun who ruled over it," Itachi recounted woodenly, almost as if he were delivering a mission report. "I was honour-bound to report my clan's treasonous intentions when I discovered their plans to overthrow the Shimura shogunate. So I betrayed my family, and became a double agent, believing that my actions would lead to a peaceful resolution. Instead, Danzo signed the death warrant of the entire clan."

He paused, briefly closing his eyes, as Sakura attempted to digest the barbaric tale without losing her lunch. "When I protested against the order, Danzo took my younger brother hostage. Knowing of my devotion to Sasuke, he issued an ultimatum – if I took a blood oath, and personally ensured the deaths of my clansman, he would spare Sasuke. If I refused, Sasuke would die alongside the rest of my clan."

Sakura's lips curled in unadulterated disgust. "What a sadistic piece of shit," she snarled.

Itachi glanced down. His smooth, carefully modulated voice was stripped of all emotion. "I took the blood oath, not knowing that it formed part of an ancient shamanic ritual of enslavement. Afterwards, Danzo told me it was to prevent me from committing ritual suicide, as I was far too valuable an asset for him to lose. And then, to test the limits of the geis, he ordered me to kill Sasuke."

Sakura inhaled sharply, horror and empathy written all over her face and wide, sea-green eyes. Almost of its own volition, one slender hand lifted, reaching across the table. For several beats, it hovered over Itachi's sleeve, before tentatively coming to rest on his forearm, the contact as light as a butterfly's wing. "I'm so sorry, Itachi," she whispered.

The man stared down at her hand like it was an alien thing. His empty, stone-faced expression and the deadness in his eyes was frightening. "After the massacre, I became Danzo's personal hand of death, a key instrument in his brutal military campaigns and the building of his empire. I thought it would end upon his death, but the curse was not tied to Danzo. It was tied to the amulet."

"But… how?"

Itachi shook his head. "Danzo burned the only scroll containing information on the ritual. I only know that the power of the geis came at a high price." With her hand on his sleeve, Sakura felt, rather than saw, the muscles in his forearm clench. "In order to complete the sealing ritual, Danzo had to sacrifice that which he loved the most."

Sakura's blood ran cold at his next words.

"The locket was forged from the ashes of his daughter's heart, which he wrenched directly from her chest."

.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The AU-retelling of the events surrounding the Uchiha massacre are inspired by the political structures of feudal Japan, accounts of various historical despots from the perspective of conquered cultures and peoples, and basic tenets of 'there is no free lunch when it comes to magic' in fantasy, myth and folklore. _


	27. Chapter 27

"That's... beyond barbaric." Feeling physically ill at Itachi's revelation, Sakura pushed her half-eaten bowl of rice aside, forcing the bile back down her throat. Her other hand tightened reflexively on Itachi's forearm. To her astonishment, he did not pull away. "What happened when the psychopath died? Surely you weren't always indentured to genocidal warmongers?"

"There were periods of history where the locket was lost, or its powers forgotten. But every master I served knowingly summoned me in order to use the power of the killing curse for their own ends." Without breaking eye contact, his free hand reached across the table, his thumb lightly skimming over the spot on her finger where the locket had cut. Sakura's breath hitched at the fleeting, strangely intimate touch. "That is," he continued, sounding vaguely bemused, almost mystified. "—until you."

Sakura flushed, dropping her gaze. "Sorry. If it weren't for my blasted curiosity and bad luck, we wouldn't even be in this predicament."

He shrugged lightly in response. "There are worse predicaments."

"...I guess," she conceded, with a touch of black humour. "I mean, I could've been a wannabe anarchist." Her eyes narrowed at her next thought. "Wait... were you part of that infamous terrorist cell group that almost won the Fourth Great War two hundred years ago?"

Itachi inclined his head. "The leader of Akatsuki summoned me shortly after the group was established."

"But didn't he meet a rather unfortunate, untimely end? According to historical accounts, he wasn't a stupid man, and with the benefit of the geis, he should've been able to secure himself a much longer life."

Itachi's gaze sharpened a little. He was silent for a full minute, eyeing Sakura with an unnerving scrutiny, as if he was debating whether or not to trust her with his next admission. "Over time, I slowly learnt the limits of the geis' powers," he finally replied. "While I cannot directly harm the master of the geis, it is not entirely impossible to engineer an... _incidental_ accident, with sufficient causal distance."

A sharp jolt of fear ran up Sakura's spine when the full implications of his statement caught up with her. Armed with this new and rather alarming piece of information, Itachi's quiet _"It was not my intention to cause you injury"_ after tending to her kitchen mishap suddenly took on a whole new layer of meaning. Sakura shivered.

"You should eat the rest of your rice before it gets cold," she said, abruptly changing topic. "And you've hardly touched the tomatoes! We don't have to cook them in the future, if you don't like them."

"They are fine," Itachi replied. His voice became muted, distant. "...They were Sasuke's favourite."

Sakura froze. There was an achingly wistful look in his eyes that she had never seen before, and she found herself at a loss on how to respond. Half-afraid he'd slam down his shields again if they dwelled too long on the subject, she settled on giving him a tentative, shaky smile.

"How about some tea?"


	28. Chapter 28

The blistering heat of the desert hit Sakura with the force of a wrecking ball as soon as she and Itachi stepped out of the central station of the City Hidden in the Sand. Wicked-looking carrion birds wheeled overhead, dark skeletal shapes against a sky so blue it hurt her eyes. Even by bullet train, the journey from Konoha to Suna took just shy of four hours, and having arrived just as the midday sun reached its zenith, the pair found themselves at the full mercy of its scorching rays.

Immediately, Sakura was reminded of why she avoided making trips to the Land of Wind. Shielding her eyes from the intense glare, she squinted down at the small map of Suna displayed on her phone screen. A green squiggly line marked out the path that would lead them to Gaara's shop, _The Mark of the Beast_.

"Right, according to my GPS, we need to go straight up the road, take two lefts and then a right," she said to Itachi. The assassin remained characteristically silent as Sakura led them down the barren, stucco streets until they finally reached a dome-shaped terracotta building at the end of an alley. The name of the store was carved in bold letters into the arched entryway's clay facade, and all manner of tchotchkes and curios hung in the shop window.

Eager to escape the heat and the swirling sands stinging her sandalled feet, Sakura made a beeline for the entrance. She was rewarded by a blast of blissfully cool air-conditioned air as she pushed open the door.

The gentle tinkling of wind-chimes announced their presence. The man at the counter looked up at the sound, and when Sakura's eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, she couldn't help but gawk at him. Svelte and at little fey-looking, the kanji character for 'love' was tattooed on his forehead, an angry red brand against the ghostly pallor of his skin. It took a few seconds for Sakura to realise that the disconcerting picture the man made was, in large part, due to his complete lack of eyebrows.

When he made no move to acknowledge them, Sakura decided to take the initiative. "You're the Sandman, right? Gaara? I'm Sakura, a friend of Tenten's."

At the mention of the metalsmith, the corners of his kohl-rimmed eyes softened slightly. It was so subtle that Sakura would have missed it altogether, had her observational skills not been honed by three days of attempting to interpret Itachi's microexpressions. Flashing Gaara her brightest, most charming smile, she stepped up to the counter.

"I was wondering if you might be able to advise me on the best way to destroy a cursed object."


	29. Chapter 29

Vivid green eyes, two shades darker than her own, stared unblinkingly back at her. There was an unnerving intensity about Gaara that rivalled Itachi, and for a split second, Sakura's polite smile faltered. "That depends," he intoned quietly.

She tilted her head. "On what?"

"The object's purpose."

"What if, say, it was used in a binding ritual?" Sakura asked, glancing furtively around the small shop. There was only one other patron in the store, a tall, long-haired woman with a thick rope tied around her waist like a makeshift belt, but she appeared entirely engrossed in the book in her hands. All the same, Sakura lowered her voice, keeping her tone breezy and carefully offhanded. "...Like a, I dunno, a... geis of some sort."

"Then you'd be wasting your time," Gaara replied bluntly. "The sealing object is only a conduit for the curse. Destroying it is pointless."

Sakura frowned. "Then how would I break a geis? Or are they unbreakable?" Hastily, she added— "Totally hypothetically, of course."

"A truly unbreakable geis would require infinite power, and is therefore impossible to cast," the taciturn shopkeeper answered with complete seriousness, unperturbed by Sakura's pointed questions. Then again, in his line of work, she supposed he was used to far weirder. "As a result, by their very nature, all curses have conditions, an Achilles heel, that negates their effect."

Sakura nodded absently. His answer confirmed what she'd read at the library. "So… how would you find out what that is?"

"Usually from transcriptions of the binding ritual."

Sakura and Itachi shared a glance. "That's not an option," Itachi said, voice flat. The shades obscuring his eyes made it even harder for Sakura to guess what he was thinking. She turned back to Gaara, desperately grasping at straws. "I've read that killing the caster works, too."

A brusque nod. "On occasion."

"But what if the caster is dead?"

Gaara looked at her as if she were a total imbecile. "Then perform rites of sympathetic magic. The Law of Contagion still applies."

At Sakura's blank look, he sighed, shaking his head in annoyance. The sunlight streaming from the window formed a burnished copper halo around his spiky locks. Stepping away from the counter, Gaara gestured imperiously at them. "Come with me."


	30. Chapter 30

With Itachi a faithful shadow at her side, Sakura trailed after Gaara into the bowels of the store, murmuring a polite "excuse me" as she scooted around the other patron who had wandered closer to the counter. The book the willowy figure had been poring over was tucked under one arm while she skimmed the bookshelves situated near the front of the shop.

Despite the massive, inexplicable gourd strapped to his back, Gaara navigated the cramped aisles with surprising nimbleness. Sakura eyed the strange object bobbing in front of her, obscuring most of Gaara's figure.

"What's in the gourd?" she asked, the curiosity getting better of her.

"Protective sand."

Sakura paused. Her mouth opened, and then closed, before deciding it was probably best not to question any further. "...Right," she said instead. "Of course."

In brisk steps, Gaara led them past rows and rows of neat, clearly labelled inventory, stopping at a section labelled 'Similarity, imitation and contagion'. "There are two broad avenues you could pursue to break a geis if you don't know what the condition is." he said tonelessly. "Depending on your moral scruples, you may wish to try one or the other, or both."

He pulled a few items from the shelves, before handing Sakura a thick encyclopaedic tome. "The first option is to kill the caster using the two principles of sympathetic magic – the Laws of Similarity and Contagion. Frazer's first volume explains this in detail. Based on these principles, as long as you can track down an object that the caster came into contact with – ideally a part of their body – effigies, poppets and fetishes would still work even if the caster is dead."

"...Are you talking about _voodoo dolls_?" Sakura said dubiously. She watched as he selected a variety of oils, dried herbs, incense and mystery powders, before dropping them unceremoniously into the basket dangling from his hand. A week ago, the pink-haired medical student, who prided herself on her logical mind and unshakable faith in scientific rationality, would have scoffed and rolled her eyes, dismissing Gaara as a quack who preyed on the gullible and the stupid. Of course, _that_ Sakura hadn't landed herself a cursed assassin slumming in stasis inside an indestructible locket, casually violating conservation of energy and pretty much every other fundamental law of nature. It was enough to send the physics community into an existential tailspin.

"That's one example," Gaara replied without a hint of mockery. He made a sudden about-face, jerking his head at Sakura and Itachi to follow. "The second option is to release the victim from the geis by using ritual purification, banishment or transference." Two slim volumes and a few more miscellaneous objects from another section of the store joined the other items in the basket. "These should help. No guarantees though. Anything else?"

Sakura blinked. "...Excuse me?"

"Were you after anything else?"

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

Gaara turned in the direction of the counter. "I'll ring up the items."

.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The principles of sympathetic magic cited in this chapter are referenced in a real book. 'The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion' (retitled 'The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion' in its second edition) is a comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer in 1890. _

_However, in future chapters, mention (if any) of any specific magical rituals attempted will be purely fictional and/or inspired by a mashup of different cultural practices, written for humorous effect. This is for two reasons: (1) the author is lazy as hell, and research is time-consuming (I now know, for example, more about the physical properties of metals, the setup of a modern forge, and forging terminology and equipment, than I ever thought I would), and (2) this is fantasy-lite, not an introduction into neo-paganism (which some still practice, and I would hate to cause unintentional offence). _


	31. Chapter 31

"That comes to eight hundred and ninety ryo."

Fishing her wallet out of her bag, Sakura pulled out her credit card to pay, kissing goodbye to a portion of the savings she'd scrimped together that month. Just as she was extending her arm to hand over the thin bit of plastic, the willowy woman, who'd joined the queue shortly after Sakura returned to the counter, lost her grip on one of the items in her arms. Lurching forward to grab it before it could shatter on the ground, her shoulder accidentally knocked into Sakura's outstretched arm, the force of the collision causing Sakura to drop her card and stumble into Itachi.

Immediately, a bracing arm reached out to steady her. Warm fingertips, the only part of Itachi's hands exposed by his fingerless gloves, brushed against the bare skin at the curve of her narrow waist, where her cropped tee had ridden up.

The pair tensed at the same time.

Hyper-aware of each tiny point of skin-on-skin contact, Sakura swallowed convulsively, her gut clenching. With her cheek pressed against his collarbone, mind wiped blank by the sudden frisson of heat, she found herself drowning in Itachi's delicious pine-and-woodsmoke scent.

For three stuttering heartbeats, neither moved. And then, almost reluctantly, Itachi set her more firmly on her feet, his hand slipping from her waist.

"Thanks," she mumbled.

Sakura barely noticed when another pallid hand, the skin paper-thin and paler than porcelain, reached down and picked up the fallen credit card. Slowly, the stranger's head lifted, directly facing Sakura for the first time. As silky sable strands of hair parting around a narrow, bone-white face, Sakura realised with a shocked jolt that the woman was, in actual fact, a man. Their fingertips grazed as Sakura accepted the proffered credit card with a uncertain smile. She shuddered, trying not to recoil. His touch was as cold as a corpse.

Glittering amber eyes, the pupils almost slitted in the light, flicked away from the ridged details of the card to linger on Itachi, and then back at her. "My sincerest apologies," the stranger rasped. His answering smile exposed a row of sharp, fang-like teeth. "...Miss Haruno Sakura."


	32. Chapter 32

At two hours past midnight, Konoha Cemetery was an eerie, deserted place. Polished white tombstones rose in uniform rows from the manicured grass, like a sea of stone soldiers in military formation, marking out the burial sites of the dead. Under the shroud of darkness, two balaclava-clad figures moved swiftly through the graveyard, scurrying towards the set of historic shrines at the furthermost northern end, beneath the shade of four gracefully arcing kaede trees.

"I can't believe we're actually digging up a grave," the shorter of the two whispered. There was a note of incredulity in her voice, as if she was scandalised by her own behaviour. "I can see the headlines now: 'Disgraced medical student Haruno Sakura desecrates final resting place of Konoha's founding father'."

Her companion simply started shovelling the dirt under Danzo's marker in response. "Only if you are discovered." A pointed pause. "...A possibility that becomes increasingly more likely the longer we linger here."

Taking the hint, Sakura picked up her own shovel and got to work, grateful for the clouds that hid the waxing moon – and their actions – from view.

A rustle in the trees made her freeze in mid-trowel. "What was that?"

Ever since that strange, snake-like man had bumped into her at _The Mark of the Beast_ , Sakura had been feeling jumpier than usual. She hadn't seen the man after leaving the store, and he'd probably just been one of Gaara's eccentric, but ultimately harmless, customers, but that ass-bow guy had given her major creeps. And skulking about in a graveyard in the dead of night wasn't exactly helping to soothe her rattled nerves. "Itachi," she hissed. "Did you hear that?"

Itachi paused, scanning their surroundings for dangers with the trained eye of a shinobi. "It was nothing," he replied eventually. "But we should proceed as expeditiously as possible."

The speed of their shovelling increased. At approximately six feet below ground, their blades hit unyielding stone with a dull thunk. A few more shovels, before Itachi dropped to his knees, brushing aside the remaining dirt to lift up the cover of the crypt, exposed to air for the first time in a millennium.

Inside the crypt was a small porcelain urn. With assiduous care, Sakura eased the vessel containing Danzo's cremated remains out of its resting place.

"Why, hello there, asshole," she greeted spitefully. "I hope you're ready for a few... _experiments_."

.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Credit to the apt 'ass-bow' descriptor goes to SomebodyLost._


	33. Chapter 33

They were carefully rolling back the top layer of grass over the freshly overturned soil to hide their tracks, when Itachi abruptly stilled.

In the blink of an eye, he tossed their shovels behind the bushes. Tucking the burial urn under his arm, he grabbed Sakura by the wrist and spun, pulling them both behind a tree. And just like that, Sakura found herself plastered between a rock and a hard place, trapped between rough tree bark and the unyielding planes of Itachi's body. A warm hand gently cupped the back of her head, cushioning the sudden impact.

Before the squeak of surprise could escape her lips, Itachi's hand shifted to cover her mouth, instantly muffling the sound.

A strand of silky hair tickled her cheek as he dipped his head closer to hers. His low, unruffled voice drifted softly into her ear. "Someone's coming."

With her back ramrod straight, heart jackhammering in her chest, Sakura strained to hear what Itachi's sharp ears had detected much earlier. Slowly, faint scuffles and thumps in the distance grew louder, signalling the arrival of the night-shift undertaker on his hourly rounds. Sakura held her breath as the man drew closer. Heavy footfalls came to a halt at the grove, stopping a few feet from where she and Itachi had stood mere minutes before. After doing a cursory sweep of the area with his flashlight, and finding nothing but deserted paths and silent gravestones, the man gave a satisfied grunt and trudged back in the direction of his office shed.

Footsteps faded away.

Leaves rustled in the silence.

Sakura cleared her throat awkwardly. "Erm," she began, wetting suddenly dry lips. Crimson eyes tracked the unconscious movement with unconcealed fascination. "So… can we leave now?"

Itachi glanced down. "If you release your grip on my shirt," he replied drolly.

She followed his gaze in confusion, only to find both her fists pressed against his chest, the fabric of his top crushed in white-knuckled death-grips.

Flushing in mortification, Sakura yanked her hands away as if burned.

"...Sorry," she muttered.

Itachi turned away as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Smoothly, he bent down by the bushes to pick up the two shovels, before slinging them over his shoulder.

"Let's go."


	34. Chapter 34

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous."

Yanking the balaclava off and blowing her sweaty bangs away from her face, Sakura glared down at the hastily constructed ragdoll in her hands. In the dim blue twilight, its black button eyes seemed to twinkle tauntingly up at her. A fragment of what could have been Danzo's pelvic bone was tied around the doll's neck. "This clearly isn't working."

After carefully wiping down and returning the shovels they had 'borrowed' from the shed of an oblivious and peacefully slumbering neighbour, she and Itachi had made their way to a nearby park. Three hours later, Sakura found herself recreating a scene straight out of a bad Weird Sisters parody, the various items bought at Gaara's shop scattered haphazardly about her on the dewy grass.

"We've gone through every voodoo spell in the book, my hands are coated in dead dictator dust, and we're going to burn down the park if we don't blow out those candles soon." Not to mention her nerves were still on edge, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to shake off the strange, sinister feeling of being watched. Spinning around to check the bushes behind her just for good measure, Sakura promptly stepped on one of the nails that had fallen out of the pincushion Danzo doll at some point during their bungling attempts at black magic.

"Ow, goddammit!" she swore, inadvertently breaking the ash circle surrounding her when she hopped backwards to check the bottom of her bare foot for injury. "Great. Now I probably need a tetanus shot."

Itachi's preternatural eyes – the only part of his face not covered by the balaclava he hadn't yet removed – briefly flicked up from the pages of the book in his hands. "...You missed the final line of the last incantation."

Tired, cranky and in desperate need of some shut eye, Sakura opened her mouth to tell him in graphic (albeit physiologically impossible) terms exactly where he could shove the stupid book with its stupid incantations.

"The sun will rise soon," Itachi smoothly cut in, before she could launch into her angry tirade. His sharp gaze lingering over the exhausted slope of Sakura's shoulders and the dark smudges under her eyes. With a quiet, relenting sigh, he snuffed out the candles with a gloved hand. "...We can reevaluate our options in a few hours, after some rest."


	35. Chapter 35

The morning dawned grey and overcast, a perfect reflection of Sakura's despondent spirits. Heavy fog shrouded the tree-lined mountaintops in a hazy veil, while drifts of silvery mist licked at the red torii gates looming before her and Itachi. After bowing their heads respectfully at the gates, they skirted around the painted pillars and slowly climbed the steep stone steps that led up to the Byakugan Shrine.

A diminutive figure, dressed in the traditional, pressed red-and-white garb of a shrine maiden, was sweeping the path leading to the main hall of worship. Sakura smiled, her steps quickening in the young woman's direction. "Hinata!"

The miko turned at the sound of her name, her pearly, moon-touched eyes luminous beneath thick, blunt-cut bangs. A shy smile spread across her face. "Good morning, Sakura," she returned softly.

Sakura nudged Itachi forward with a light hand on his forearm. "This is Itachi. He's a new…" her voice trailed off, finding herself at a momentary loss for an appropriate descriptor to sum up their rather unconventional relationship. She darted an uncertain glance up at the stoic assassin. "...friend." she finished lamely.

Itachi stiffened, head jerking in Sakura's direction. It was evident from his surprise and clear discomfort that it had been a long, long time since someone had called him 'friend'. Sakura bit her lip, a twinge of pity curling in her stomach.

The strangely loaded moment was interrupted by Hinata's sweet, mellifluous voice. "Thank you for visiting the Byakugan shrine, Mr. Itachi," she greeted formally, after executing a perfect, graceful bow. It was only her slightly unfocused gaze, and the way her cloudy eyes didn't quite meet Itachi's, that betrayed the fact she was partially – if not fully – blind. "My name is Hyuuga Hinata, the priestess of this shrine. Please accept my humble welcome."

Itachi returned her bow with a polite, flawlessly executed one of his own. "Thank you, Priestess."

Perfunctories over, Sakura grasped Hinata's hand in entreaty, ignoring her soft squeak of surprise. "Hinata, we've come with a somewhat unorthodox request. You know how to perform rites of ritual purification, right?"

Hinata nodded hesitantly. "Is there somewhere you would like purified?"

Sakura shot another look at Itachi.

"Not somewhere. Some _one_."


	36. Chapter 36

It was only after Hinata had directed her visitors to the temizuya pavilion for initial ceremonial cleansing that a terrible thought struck Sakura. She froze in mid-motion, the contents tipping out of the wooden ladle she held in one hand.

"Wait. Purification rites are meant to cleanse _all_ influence of evil." Cool water dribbled uselessly over her outstretched left hand and back into the stone basin as her head whipped towards to the raven-haired man standing next to her. "But your blood is bound intimately to the curse."

Pouring a little water in his cupped palm, Itachi moved to rinse his mouth before turning to her. ' _Your point?'_ his arched brow seemed to ask.

"That means… that means – if this somehow works – you might get obliterated along with it!"

Itachi set the ladle he'd used back down on its stand. He looked wholly unconcerned. "It is possible. The prospect is not unwelcoming."

Gut churning in sudden horror, Sakura grabbed his hand without thinking. "No!" she cried frantically. "You can't. I don't want—"

Abruptly, she stopped, shocked by the force of her own emotion.

Sakura swallowed.

 _'I don't want you to die.'_

Itachi's fingers twitched in her desperate grasp, but he did not pull them away. "Death is infinitely more preferable to an eternal half-life of servitude," he replied quietly, as though he could hear the words that hung in the air between them, unsaid.

Sakura opened her mouth to argue, but no words came out. In the end, there was nothing she could say to refute him. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. Reluctantly, her hand slid away.

Wordlessly, Itachi turned and headed towards the courtyard, where Hinata was laying out a brush and ink set on a low table situated just in front of the main hall. With shuttered eyes, Sakura watched his retreating figure, before finally trailing after him. Sensing their approaching footsteps, Hinata gestured daintily to the opposite side of the narrow table where she sat. "Please, when you're ready, have a seat."

Itachi sank into seiza with ease, swiftly removing his sunglasses. From her knelt position beside him, Sakura stared at his proud profile, hit with a sense of imminent loss and staggering realisation. "Itachi—" she blurted out, awkward words forming haltingly on her tongue. "In case this works, I want you to know… I— I'm going to miss you."

The corners of his eyes softened, the deep stress lines etched into his face smoothing slightly. His expression as he regarded her spoke of something close to warmth. It was the closest to a true smile that Sakura had ever seen on his face.

"...I am glad to have met you, Sakura," he said.

.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Itachi and Sakura's actions at the temizuya is based on an actual Shinto ceremonial cleansing rite known as temizu. This symbolic purification is standard before worship, and was originally done at a spring, stream or seashore. Now, most shrines have an open-air temizuya pavilion (also known as a chozuya) housing stone basins filled with flowing water, for worshippers to rinse their left hand, right hand, mouth and finally the handle of the water ladle before approaching the main worship hall._

 _(And, to those who celebrate it - Merry Christmas! Blessings of joy and peace for the festive season.)_


	37. Chapter 37

Heart in throat, fingers nervously wringing the fabric of her sleeves, Sakura watched as Hinata gently picked up the ink brush she had laid out, while her other hand mapped out the dimensions of small strip of rice paper before her. Looking just as skittish as her pink-haired friend, the miko applied brush to paper, gingerly tracing out the four kanji characters that formed the ofuda talisman for dispersing evil spirits. Despite her impaired vision, her calligraphy was artful and well-formed, the shakiness of the script a consequence of Hinata's lack of self-confidence rather than her blindness.

The ink had barely dried on the paper before Hinata picked up the strip between two fingers and took a deep, fortifying breath.

" _Rin, ryou, tou, sha, kai, jin, retsu, zai, zen. Akuryo Taisan!_ " she cried, reaching across the table to plaster the ofuda on Itachi's forehead. An unfortunate miscalculation of Itachi's height meant that the paper talisman missed its target altogether, and instead landed smack dab in the middle of his face.

Itachi blinked. The tacky backing of the ofuda kept the paper dangling off his nose for a brief, undignified moment, before slowly floating to his lap.

A pause, as the three occupants of the courtyard waited for a sign that the purification had taken effect.

The sign never came.

The long breath Sakura had unconsciously held escaped her lungs in an audible whoosh. Overlaying the sharp sting of disappointment was a profound sense of pure relief, wrapped around a confusing mix of feelings she didn't want to identify. Why did she care so much? When had she grown so… _attached_ to the mysterious assassin?

"Well," she quipped, not wanting to face the disturbing revelations that threatened to scare the living daylights out of her. "That was anti-climatic."

Hinata bit her lip, ducking her head in shame and apology. "I'm sorry, Sakura," she mumbled, as though the unsuccessful purification attempt was a personal failure on her part. "The black magic that binds him is too strong. I… I don't have the power to break the ties I sense."

Sakura immediately got to her feet, rounding the table to wrap a consoling arm around the blind priestess' shoulders. "It's okay, Hinata. Thanks for trying – I really appreciate it." After sharing a look with Itachi, she added, "—we both do."

Itachi nodded. "The chances of success have always been slim. And there is at least one unexplored avenue, still, left open to us."

Hinata fidgeted, her forefingers tapping together timidly. "Um… in that case, before you go..."

The miko stood, rushing towards the nearby omamori pavillion. Curiously, Sakura and Itachi watched as Hinata trailed a hand over the neat rows of colourful brocade bags that contained a variety of good luck charms, before plucking two omamori bags from their display and hurrying back towards them. "Please, take these."

Leading Sakura a small distance away, she handed her a beautifully embroidered scarlet bag, a charm of protection to ward against evil influence. "There is a lurking darkness around you, a growing chill, that almost feels like premonition," she said in low tones. "My spiritual powers are weak, so it's likely nothing, but… please be careful, Sakura."

Suppressing the shiver that ran up her spine at the priestess' words, Sakura clasped Hinata's hands in wordless thanks. Hinata then handed Itachi an omamori of his own, her murmured words too soft for Sakura to overhear. Itachi stilled, but accepted the charm in both hands with a bow.

Bidding their farewells to the priestess, the pair made their way down the stone steps of the Byakugan Shrine. "What did Hinata give you?" Sakura asked, peering nosily at the omamori Itachi had been gifted, a white silk bag decorated with delicate pink cherry blossoms.

Itachi palmed the charm, before slipping it into his pocket. "A blessing," he replied quietly. "...of peace."

.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _If the ofuda chant sounds familiar, that's because it is plagiarised, word-for-word, from the one that Sailor Mars uses in the Sailor Moon anime. I have no defense._


	38. Chapter 38

"Here, give me your right hand," Sakura said, a copy of the _Book of Shadows_ spread across her crossed legs.

They were back in her messy apartment, perched side-by-side on the couch. The locket was tossed on the coffee table on top of the day's latest batch of junk mail, surrounded by an eclectic mix of items, which included dried Angelica root, Abremilin oil, alcohol wipes, a box of tissues, and – most inexplicably – a scalpel.

With a surprising lack of hesitation, Itachi extended his hand.

In brisk, clinical movements, Sakura stripped off his fingerless glove before giving his thumb a quick clean with an alcohol wipe. "Apparently this unbinding ritual requires three drops of your blood on the locket," she explained, as she picked up the scalpel to make a small incision on his thumbpad.

Even without glancing up, Sakura could hear the smirk in his voice. "...Might I suggest another method for drawing blood?"

Before he'd finished his sentence, the shallow cut had closed over, leaving smooth, unblemished skin. Sakura's jaw dropped open. Her head shot up. "Holy shit, you heal so fast! Do you even bleed?!"

This time she saw him smirk. "With a bit of persistence," he replied. Then, Itachi reached down with his free hand to withdraw something from his boot.

Sakura frowned in confusion at the tanto knife that had suddenly appeared in his hand. The light glinted off the wickedly sharp edge before it was covered by his palm. "What—" she began.

Without so much as a twitch, he coolly closed his fist over the naked blade and squeezed.

The questions died in Sakura's throat.

She was by no means squeamish (med school had a way of beating that out of you) but there was something alarming about the blasé way the man gripped the blade, patiently waiting for his blood to well from wounds forcibly kept open. Slowly, crimson beads began to drip down the tip of the knife onto the locket.

"Don't get too enthusiastic," she cautioned, trying not to shudder. "We only need three drops."

Itachi let go of the blade. Sakura watched with fascination as the deep cuts in his palm stitched themselves closed before her incredulous eyes. Calmly, he wiped off the leftover bloodstains from his hand and knife before tilting his head at her. ' _Now what?'_ he seemed to ask.

Wrenching her thoughts away from the scientific implications of the medical marvel she'd just witnessed, Sakura returned back to the ritual at hand. Her mouth twisted in distaste as she made a cut on her own thumb, and then pressed it directly onto the blood-splattered locket. "I'd bet half my liver at least one person has contracted hepatitis from all these unsanitary blood rites," she muttered, before launching into the unbinding spell.

'Please let this work. Please let this work,' she thought desperately.

Three beats.

Her heart sank.

"...It's not working, is it?"

Itachi sighed, defeated resignation in the set of his shoulders. "We may have exhausted all our options."

Sakura paused in the act of bandaging up her wound. "...Not all," she mumbled.

He raised a brow.

She dropped her gaze, an alarming shade of red creeping up her neck. Her words came out in a flustered rush. "It's a long shot, but it might work, though it requires more physical contact than you're probably comfortable with, and well— that is— I mean to say— oh god, this is so awkward to explain!"

Itachi raised his other brow. By now the redness had spread over Sakura's face like a violent rash.

"Oh, fuck it."

Before she could lose her nerve, Sakura yanked the unsuspecting Itachi towards her by the collar and mashed her lips against his.


	39. Chapter 39

At first, it was one of the most painfully awkward – and possibly least romantic – moments Sakura had ever found herself in, not so much a kiss as a clumsy clashing of lips and teeth. With her eyes wide open, she saw the revealed whites of Itachi's sclera as his own flew open in shock. He was so tense that, for a humiliating moment, Sakura almost expected him to shove her away.

And then, as if something inside him snapped, Itachi relaxed into the kiss. A tentative hand reached around to rest at the small of her back, the other coming to curl gently behind her neck. Without the fabric of his glove between them, the heat of his calloused palm raised tingling goosebumps on her skin.

Slowly, Itachi drew her closer to him, deepening the kiss. Cautious fingers caressed the sensitive spot at the nape of her neck, before tangling in the short ends of her hair. Sakura shuddered, head spinning from the sudden sensory overload. Mindlessly, she melted into him, her eyes fluttering shut.

The atmosphere of the room shifted.

The kiss was almost torturous in its restraint, as gentle as the spring breeze whispering through the blossoming cherry trees outside. Itachi's mouth was soft and achingly tender against hers. Heady and drunk on the moment, Sakura clung to the fabric of his shirt like a lifeline, feeling his heart pound beneath her palm as rapidly and thunderously as her own. Despite the chaos in her head, her heart sighed in contentment.

When Itachi finally pulled away, lips moist and parted, his vermillion eyes were bright with the most emotion she had ever seen in them.

For a long moment, they regarded each other silently, wide-eyed and uncertain in the aftermath of the kiss.

"...An unusual method to attempt," Itachi finally said, breaking the uncomfortable, oppressive silence.

"Yeah, I guess it only works in fairytales," Sakura replied, willing her heart-rate and breathing to calm. Awkwardly clearing her throat, she busied herself with cleaning up the mess on the coffee table, hoping her voice sounded as unaffected and nonchalant as his did. "...Well, it was worth a shot."


	40. Chapter 40

"Our lack of success seems to indicate that the only method for breaking this geis has been lost with the original binding scroll. Two days remain before the curse takes effect. Perhaps it is time to consider... contingencies."

Sakura looked up from the piece of battered shrimp she was pushing around in listless motions on her plate, fenced by the half-eaten remains of a set meal she had picked up from the tempura joint across the road.

"You mean, choose a victim," she replied flatly. They had reached an unspoken mutual agreement to move past the kiss as if it had never happened.

Itachi took a mechanical bite from the contents of his own bento box, as though he was barely registering its taste. "You work in a hospital. Surely there are those, among the terminally ill and the infirm, who would welcome death."

Sakura threw him an incredulous look. "Are you seriously suggesting that I kill a patient?!" she asked shrilly.

"...It would be an act of mercy."

She threw up her hands. "Euthanasia is _not_ a debate I'm getting into with you."

Itachi said nothing.

Sakura frowned. "The crime lord Gato and his army of thugs recently took over the Land of Waves… I don't think the citizens of Wave would mind if they disappeared," she mused thoughtfully. "And the City Hidden in the Clouds has recently elected a demagogue threatening to build a wall between Frost and Lightning—" She gave a furious shake of her head. "What am I saying, playing at God?! I can't do this. You choose!"

The assassin glanced away. "I have never killed anyone of my own volition," he admitted quietly.

Sakura blinked in surprise at his astonishing confession, even as guilt stabbed her in the stomach. How could she pawn off responsibility by forcing Itachi – who was probably a closet pacifist, a reluctant killer drowning in the weight of his own self-condemnation – to make the final choice? It was a coward's way out, and though she had many faults, Sakura was no coward.

"Let's keep it that way, then," she replied, more decisively than she felt. "I'll choose a target. Just… give me till tomorrow."

.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental._


	41. Chapter 41

Flopped across her unmade bed, Sakura stared blankly up at her white-washed ceiling, lost in thought. A spider was hard at work weaving its home in the dusty corner.

She heaved a sigh. If Itachi was right, and the only way to break the curse was to exploit its point of weakness, then their chances of actually breaking the geis were about as likely as Sakura waking up to find herself with super-strength and magical healing powers. It was patently clear from her research that the condition or loophole embedded in the geis could be anything, and – no thanks to that bastard Danzo – there was no way of referring back to the original binding scroll to find out what it was.

Her mind flicked back to the ridiculous goat and fishing net curse-breaking method, and the 'no man can slay me' tales she had read. 'It'll probably be something contradictory or a twist on a technicality, or something Danzo never expected Itachi to do.'

She sighed again, giving up on her train of thought. '...What that might be is anyone's guess.'

Weary emerald eyes flickered away from the eight-legged squatter to the row of medical textbooks and meticulous course notes crammed in her bookshelf. Soon, her short break from the long slog of classes and rounds at the hospital would be coming to an end, and not only would she have egotistic consultants to suck up to, she now had a rolling to-kill list to lose sleep over.

Sakura inhaled abruptly, hit with a burst of epiphany, shooting up so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. "Itachi, I just thought of something!" she exclaimed excitedly, twisting around to meet the quizzical gaze of her assassin, who had settled back in his favoured seat on the window ledge. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way! You said so yourself – the scientific advances in this century have been prodigious. The things we can do now, knowing what we do, would be nothing short of miraculous in Danzo's time. Screw magic, modern medicine might hold the key to the cure!"

Itachi paused in the rhythmic motions of sharpening his knife. Though he did not reply, the sceptical look on his face was answer enough.

"Look," Sakura pointed out, as she ran a distracted hand through bed-mussed pink locks. "What have we got to lose?"

Without waiting for a response, she rolled across the bed, plucking the phone from her nightstand and swiftly dialled in some numbers.

After five rings, a crisp, confident voice crackled over the line. "Yes?" the woman demanded, sans pleasantry or preamble.

"Hi Aunt Tsunade!" Sakura greeted. Keenly cognisant of the woman's low tolerance for irrelevant waffle, she jumped straight to the point. "Can I ask a favour?"

"Make it quick. I'm about to surgically extract a lightbulb from some dumbass's rectum."

Sakura muffled a snicker. "Can I please use your lab tonight if no one else is using it?" One of the perks of being the managing director of Konoha Hospital was that her formidable aunt somehow managed to finagle one of the hospital's laboratories for private use. Sharing research facilities was far too plebeian for the legendary Tsunade. "...It's for an elective," Sakura lied.

"Shizune's heading away on conference, so it'll be free after seven."

Sakura did a silly dance on the bed. "Perfect! You're the best, Aunt Tsunade!"

"I know." Tsunade's tone was imperious and cocksure. "Oh, and Sakura? ...Make a mess and this lightbulb will have a new home."

Before Sakura had a chance to respond to her ominous threat, the line went dead.


	42. Chapter 42

Thankfully, it was a rare, quiet night at the hospital, and Sakura managed to slip her and Itachi inside Tsunade's lab with minimal interactions with the on-call staff. Fluorescent lights flickered to life as Sakura breathed in the familiar sterile scent of the lab where she had spent virtually every summer break since sophomore year. After giving her hands a vigorous scrub at the sink and snapping on a clean pair of gloves, Sakura gestured impatiently at Itachi, who was looking around the room of state-of-the art appliances and medical instruments with unabashed curiosity. "Come here," she ordered. "Let's have a look at what we're dealing with."

"I'm going to run some routine tests, starting with a CBC – a complete blood count," she explained, as she applied a tourniquet to his arm and prepped his skin for a blood sample. With the thumb of one hand pressed firmly on his forearm, she picked up a clean syringe with the other and positioned it an inch above her thumb. "You're going to feel a slight jab," she warned, before smoothly inserting the needle.

Sakura gave a mental fist-pump, having located a vein on her first try. Deftly, she removed the tourniquet and waited for the blood to flow into the awaiting collection tube. "Should've had one of these when we attempted that blood rite," she muttered under her breath. The small prick on his arm disappeared as soon as the needle was withdrawn. "...God knows what kind of ancient bacteria are living in your shoe."

Setting aside the filled vial, Sakura handed Itachi a small plastic jar. "Now, go pee in this cup," she directed, shooing him in the direction of the door. "Bathroom's down the hall, to your left."

Itachi fixed her with a wholly unimpressed look.

Hand on hip, Sakura stubbornly held her ground. This was _her_ turf. "Go before I request a sperm sample."

Crisply, Itachi turned and made a beeline for the door.

Snickering softly to herself, Sakura picked up the blood sample and ambled to a boxy machine in the corner of the room. After ensuring the blood was well-mixed, she set the vial on the automatic analyser and waited for the cell counter to do its work.

With her back turned to the entrance, Sakura almost missed the faint rasp of the door as it slid open.

"That was fast," she quipped. Plucking the blood sample from the cell counter, she spun around—

—and almost dropped the vial in shock.

It wasn't Itachi.

The serpentine figure of the man from Gaara's shop leaned at the door, his arylide eyes gleaming with malicious intent. A razor-sharp smile spread over a face that was no less creepy on second viewing.

"Hello again, Miss Haruno," he purred.


	43. Chapter 43

Sakura tensed. "You! Who are you? You're not authorised to be here!"

The man gave a mocking bow. "Orochimaru, at your service." He flashed her another one of his slow smiles, one that showed too much teeth. "It's been quite the challenge, you know, catching you without your glorified guard-dog by your side."

Wary viridian eyes tracked his movements as he strolled leisurely into the lab. "What the hell do you want?" Sakura demanded, instinctively stepping back, her spine hitting the edge of the table behind her.

"I should think that was obvious," Orochimaru drawled, his cold gaze lingering meaningfully on the tell-tale silver chain peaking beneath the collar of Sakura's shirt. As he prowled closer, Sakura began to edge around the island workbench that separated them, trying to maintain as much distance as she could from the man. Watchfully, the pair circled each other.

"I've been looking for that locket for a long, long time," he continued. "Thank you for so helpfully handing it to me on a platter."

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "Over my dead body," she snarled. With the path to the door – and her only route of escape – now clear, she sprang into action, madly sprinting for the exit.

She was only five feet away from her goal when she was yanked from behind and violently thrown against the wall. There was a resounding crack as the back of her skull slammed against the unyielding surface, her cry of pain forcibly choked into silence by the icy hand at her throat, lifting her until her feet barely grazed the ground.

"That was the idea," Orochimaru crowed delightedly, now only inches away from her.

Ignoring the excruciating pounding in her head, Sakura threw him a venomous glare and savagely kneed him in the groin.

A kick that would have rendered a normal man incapable of procreating without surgical intervention barely registered on Orochimaru. It was like he was incapable of feeling pain.

He smirked, relishing in her shock. "This body is merely a vessel. Being undead does have the occasional perk."

Sakura's eyes bulged, unable to get any sound out except a high-pitched whimper. Her desperate attempts to shove, punch and claw him away was about as effective as trying to shift an immovable force.

Orochimaru shook his head, his hand tightening over her throat. "The power of the geis is wasted on you. _I_ , on the other hand, will be making use of it most judiciously."

' _No, no, no, no, no!'_ Sakura thought desperately, her hands scrabbling at her neck. Something at her thigh burned white-hot as blood roared loudly in her ears. Panicked and lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, she reached inside her pocket, feeling the silk brocade of Hinata's protective charm all but pulse with heat. Wrenching the omamori out, Sakura blindly slapped it over her attacker's face.

There was a burst of white light, as the purifying energy from the charm took effect. Like a piece of raw meat on a hot pan, one eye sizzled and shrivelled up in its socket while the thin membrane of its lid – along with half his enraged face – dribbled down to his neck like melted cheese.

Orochimaru roared in pain.

The rancid smell of burnt, decomposing flesh curled through the air.

"You bitch!" he hissed. Instead of releasing his grip on her, he squeezed so tightly that she was sure he'd snap her neck.

As dark spots crept steadily into her vision, Sakura thrashed futilely against her assailant and waited for death.


	44. Chapter 44

Many years later, the terrifying, gruesome moment would replay itself over and over in Sakura's dreams.

She was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness when a wickedly sharp blade slashed down a mere three inches from her nose, slicing through the bone-white arm holding her up and neatly severing Orochimaru's hand from his body. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Sakura's body instantly folded, and she slid down the wall, gulping for air in heaving gasps, trying not to choke on the sudden, blessed influx of oxygen. Almost as an afterthought, she tugged the bloody hand from her neck and threw it aside, gagging at the putrid, rotting smell.

"Sakura!" Itachi's voice was sharp with urgency and concern. In her shell-shocked state, she'd barely registered that he'd plunged the knife into Orochimaru's chest in a move that was as lethal as it was efficient, before shoving the body away. Worried eyes, as red as the blood splattered on her cheek, swam across her blurry vision as Itachi knelt before her. A pair of warm, bracing hands came to rest on her shoulders.

Sakura had never been so happy to see someone in her life.

With his back turned to the one-armed corpse of her attacker, she was the only one who saw the wounded Orochimaru roll to his feet, shuffling towards them like her worst nightmare made flesh. Sakura's eyes widened in horror. In the time it took her to cry out a warning, however, Itachi was already spinning around with impossible speed to deliver a powerful, sweeping kick at Orochimaru's shins. The man toppled over with a loud thump. Then, before he could struggle up again, Itachi picked up the bloody knife he'd set down on the ground beside him and hacked Orochimaru's head clean off his body. The headless body twitched once, before finally going still.

A shuddering cry of relief and revulsion escaped Sakura's throat. Immediately, Itachi dropped the decapitated head he was holding and turned towards her, seemingly unaware of the radiant glow that was emanating from his body, like a shining halo of angelic light. Sakura squinted, unsure if she was hallucinating from the shock, as the unnerving crimson and black swirls leeched out of his eyes, tracking sanguine tear-tracks down his cheeks, leaving only soft slate grey behind.

"I—" he tried to say, stumbling towards her, before the unfamiliar, now pupilled eyes rolled back and his whole body went slack.

The air was forced out of Sakura's lungs once more as Itachi collapsed onto his knees, his face planting directly into her chest.


	45. Chapter 45

"Pick up, pick up, pick up."

Darting uneasy looks at the locked door of the lab, Sakura paced the room, her cellphone jammed between her shoulder and cheek. One careful eye was fixed on the prone form of Itachi, rolled onto his back, his feet propped up on a chair in textbook shock position. After a heart-stopping moment where she'd feared the worst, Sakura's training had kicked in, and once she'd checked his vitals and triple-checked the slow rise and fall of his chest, she realised he had simply fainted.

A familiar, clipped voice sounded on the line. "Mark of the Beast."

Sakura almost melted in relief. Most stores were closed at this hour, but she'd hoped that Gaara's unique operation and clientele, not to mention the dark bags under his eyes, meant that the occult store in Sand was the exception to the rule. Evidently, her hunch had been right. "Oh, thank the Lord."

"You won't find him here."

Sakura would've laughed at the irreverent retort had Gaara not spoken with complete seriousness. Briefly, she wondered what it was about Tenten that attracted deadpan guys with striking looks and a notable lack of humour, before shaking the wayward thought aside. "Gaara, it's Sakura. Tenten's friend?"

A distracted hand reached up to fidget at the chain around her neck, but came up with nothing but air. The locket had vanished. For a moment Sakura was so taken aback she almost missed Gaara's response.

"...The one with the pink hair," he intoned.

"That's me." She eyed the festering remains of Orochimaru's undead corpse, blood oozing from the severed stumps. People were going to start asking some very uncomfortable questions if she didn't get rid of the evidence, and soon. Sakura's conscience was quick to remind her that, justified or not, she was essentially covering up a case of third degree murder, but the authorities were hardly going to buy some zombie attack story. Meanwhile, who knew what kinds of contagions were being released with the corpse just lying about... and inadvertently causing a zombie apocalypse was not a risk Sakura was willing to take. More importantly, if she couldn't get the bloodstains off the linoleum floor, Aunt Tsunade was going to skin her alive and feed her to her pet slugs.

"Hypothetically speaking," she asked, recalling her aunt's threat of the lightbulb with a shudder. "How would one safely and... _discreetly_ dispose of zombie remains?"

.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** There are two schools of thought in first-aid about the correct way to position someone who's unconscious. The recovery position is becoming more of the established best practice, but here I've referred to a modified Tredelenburg position._


	46. Chapter 46

Sakura had the jagged edged of a bone saw jammed beneath Orochimaru's kneecap and his shin, the rest of his cadaver already neatly chopped and ready for disposal in yellow waste bags, when Itachi suddenly spoke. "...What _are_ you doing?"

"The lab's incinerator is built for the safe disposal of biological samples, not entire bodies," she replied, immediately pausing in mid-saw to give him a clinical onceover, the messy task preventing her from rushing to his side and coddling him like an overprotective mother hen. Her tone sharpened when he swung his feet off the chair and shifted into a sitting position. "Don't get up too quickly! How are you feeling?"

Itachi tilted his head. "...Different," he finally said.

"Well, your eyes are certainly different now." With one final saw, Orochimaru's right leg was sliced in half. Sakura dropped the two bits into individual waste bags, trying desperately to pretend that it was just another routine dissection. "Admittedly, the red kinda grew on me, but now they're a nice, new, normal shade of greyish-black. And the locket's vanished." She chewed on her lip, hardly daring to hope. "Do you think…" she began hesitantly, as she stripped off her dirty gloves and facemask and turned on the hot water at the sink. "Do you think the geis finally broke somehow?"

Rolling smoothly to his feet, Itachi withdrew a kunai hidden in his jacket and made a long slice in his palm. Blood immediately welled from the cut, pooling in his palm. Seconds ticked by, but the wound did not close. "It appears so. We will know for certain tomorrow."

Sakura sighed. "...Did you really have to make such a deep cut?"

Swiping some bandages and disinfectant from the cabinet, she walked over to Itachi. "Give it here," she said, reaching for his injured hand. Feeling the weight of his gaze on her, she fixed her eyes resolutely on his palm and focused on patching him up.

The unexpectedly erotic feel of gentle fingertips ghosting down the length of her neck made her head jerk up in surprise. As startled green met inscrutable grey, Sakura swallowed nervously, trying to suppress the shiver Itachi's touch invoked.

"You're hurt."

Sakura made a face, resigning herself to a month of turtlenecks to hide the nasty bruising Orochimaru left behind. "I'm fine," she replied, waving it off. Bruises would heal. "I would've died if you hadn't arrived. I owe you my life."

His eyes sharpened. The bandaged hand twitched in her grasp. "I owe you mine."

She barked a laugh. "I don't think I can take any credit for breaking this curse." Pink brows furrowed. "...Do you think we'll ever know what exactly happened?"

"Unlikely, but we can theorise. Danzo knew I would never take a life willingly, especially to protect him, without an explicit command. Perhaps the geis required me to kill, or to save, of my own volition before I could be freed."

"Or maybe, by killing a creeper who was neither living or dead, you circumvented it on a technicality."

"Also plausible."

Belatedly, Sakura realised she'd been holding hands with Itachi the entire time. Neither party seemed willing to let go. "Any idea what you're going to do with all this newfound freedom of yours?"

Itachi shook his head. "It has been a long time since I've indulged in thoughts of such luxury."

"Well, my room is available for as long as you need it." As soon as the words left her mouth, Sakura flushed a tomato red, shocked at how flirtatious her voice sounded.

Personal embarrassment immediately vanished as the beginnings of a smile teased at the corners of Itachi's lips. The expression in his eyes was impossibly soft. "I have grown rather attached to your windowsill," he said.

Sakura laughed, something bright and effervescent blossoming inside of her as her fingers tangled with his. This – whatever 'this' was between them – felt like the start of something wonderful.

This time, when she laughed again, it was at her own sentimentality. Beginnings or not, they had a lab to clean and body parts to burn.

"...Let's get all this blood off the lino and go home."

* * *

 **[Finis]**


End file.
